


Truth Takes Time

by valantha



Category: Revolution (TV)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Angst, Canonical Character Death, Dual-timeline, Extended Scene, F/M, Literary References & Allusions, PTSD, Post-Season/Series 01 Finale, Pre-Canon, Pre-Series, Rape/Non-con References, Stockholm Syndrome, Suicide Attempt, Thoughts of Self-harm, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-13
Updated: 2013-08-02
Packaged: 2017-12-14 20:53:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 22
Words: 37,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/841269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/valantha/pseuds/valantha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Miles and Rachel have a dark and tangled past that they are both trying to overcome. Will exploring their past, and airing the multitude of secrets they’ve been keeping, help them move on? Can they help each other heal, or will they just hurt each other more? </p><p>A dual-timeline exploration of Stockholm syndrome.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Time Will Tell

**Author's Note:**

> Author’s Note: This is going to be a psychological exploration of Rachel and Miles, their damaged/fractured psyches and how their relationship caused and reflects this. This piece will be dark, and isn’t a smut piece. Rated M for POV exploration of tormented souls. 
> 
> Trigger warnings: POV PTSD/Stockholm syndrome, POV torture, POV suicide attempt, references to Non-con
> 
> Part of this story will parallel the second half of the first season, spoilers for the whole first season.
> 
> * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
> 
> Chapter 1: Time Will Tell
> 
> Author’s Note: Some dialogue taken from 1.10 – written by Monica Owusu-Breen & Matt Pitts.
> 
> I don’t own the characters or Revolution; I’m just playing with them for a bit for fun, not profit.

**Seven years after The Blackout**

*knock knock knock*

Rachel was in the process of fixing her kids a late breakfast, and turned to them. She softly told Charlie to take Danny up to the attic and lock themselves in until she or Ben gave them the safeword.

Ben was out checking his traps, trying to teach Aaron, and though the world was considerably safer than the year or so after The Blackout, it was still less than safe and she wasn’t expecting anyone. They lived in the back-of-the-beyond for a reason.

Rachel grabbed their now illegal pistol from a box on the mantle and tucked it in the back of her jeans, pulling her jacket over the slight lump. She peered through the peephole and spotted a young man, maybe 20, in a Monroe militia uniform. _Crap_.

*knock knock knock*

He knocked a second time, more forcefully, and Rachel knew she’d better open the door – or else. She undid the dead bolt but left the chain on the door. She opened the door enough to peek out, and quickly scanned the area. She only saw the one militiaman, and only one horse; even she could handle one boy. 

“Hello?” she asked politely as she inspected this young man. He was maybe 6-foot nothing and had closely cropped black hair. His olive skin and blue eyes spoke of mixed heritage, and he appeared to be only lightly armed and unarmored.

The young man snapped a salute and said, “Good morning ma’am, I’ve got a letter for Mr. Ben Matheson from General Matheson.”

Rachel took a few deep breaths, and locked her knees, trying to stay upright. She nodded to the young man and wordlessly put her hand out through the semi-open door.

The young man handed her a letter sealed with wax. The max bore the impression of Miles’ and Bass’ encircled M. The young man saluted once more and leapt off the deck, gracefully remounting his horse. Rachel stood at the door, watching him ride off, before closing and relocking the door and sliding bonelessly to the floor.

Miles had located them.

Rachel had had a hard time reconciling the Miles Matheson she had known with all of the rumors about General Matheson – yes he had a short temper and was a drunkard, but he wasn’t bloodthirsty, or rapacious – but she knew, without a doubt in her mind, she didn’t couldn’t let the militia to get their hands on Danny, or Charlie.

Rachel literally slapped herself out of her contemplation, and raced up the stairs and the over the attic hatch. She shouted “Dora and Diego,” the family’s safeword since Charlie was old enough to go to preschool.

Rachel heard the creak and groan of the bar being removed and then the attic hatch was thrown open. Rachel stepped back and Charlie dropped the rope ladder down and her two children shimmied down it like little monkeys.

Rachel kissed Danny on the top of his head and turned to Charlie, “Go find your dad, he’s supposed to be checking his traps along the creek. Tell him to forget about the traps, we have important news.”

Rachel gave Danny a large bowl of almost burned oatmeal and sat down at the table, thinking. _How am I gonna keep Charlie and Danny safe? I’d do anything to keep them safe, but what would be best?_ The only thing she knew for certain sure, was there was no way Ben would go to help Miles; one Ben was a pacifist, two they had had a rough relationship even before Miles had cut off all contact with Ben a few years before The Blackout, and three Danny.

* * *

 

 **Fifteen years after The Blackout**  

Miles and Nora, his ex, ran through Bass’s weapons R+D power plant searching for his niece and nephew. All his senses were highly tuned, anticipating detecting signs of Charlie or militiamen. Miles needed to get Charlie back. Get Danny for her. Get Charlie. Get Danny. That played over and over in his mind, like a refrain, like a prayer, like a bloody broken record. He needed to make one small step back, away from this road he had paved to hell.

Miles heard the unmistakable sounds of a firefight to his right; he wordlessly nodded to Nora, and they loped off in that direction. Miles hadn’t been in this plant for years but he remembered a defunct water catchment and cooling area nearby.

To Miles’ relief he saw Charlie – and a young man with a shock of blond hair – being pinned down by a militiaman. Charlie had her hands on a militia-grade semi-automatic, but was raising her hands in surrender. Miles suppressed a flicker of annoyance; he needed train her up better.

Miles killed the militiaman without a blink; he cleanly slid his sword through the man’s spine and heart with a minimum of effort.

“Miles” said Charlie; she took a step back. Miles glanced at Charlie, he didn’t know if she was stepping away from him out of shock, or disgust, but he pushed those thoughts back. Miles gave her an once-over and was happy to note that she appeared fine, and bent down to grab the fallen militiaman’s gun.

“You’re Uncle Miles?” Asked the young man – definitely Danny.

“And you’re the reason we’re in so much trouble,” snarked Miles, then proceeded to ask the battered boy, “You all right?” He was bleeding and bruised, but that all would heal given time, other, less noticeable things, might not.

“Yeah, I’m okay,” responded Danny. _Good._

“We gotta go,” stated Miles obviously.

“We can’t,” said Charlie simply, “My mom’s here.” _What the FUCK?!_

Miles felt the earth fall out from beneath him; he locked his knees, trying to stay upright.

Inhale, thud, thud, thud.

Exhale, thud, thud, thud, thud.

Inhale.

Miles studied Charlie’s face to see if she was serious. He gazed aside to let a thousand different thoughts crash through his mind at once. The implications and consequences of Rachel being alive roiled about in his brain.

Miles looked back at his niece, and asked for conformation, “Rachel’s… she’s alive?” His voice cracked on _her_ name, he cursed himself mentally for showing such signs of emotion.

“Yeah. Monroe’s been keeping her here as a prisoner,” stated Charlie, thankfully not noticing Miles intense reaction to this news.

Miles glanced down at his boots, and silently cursed Bass. That lying immoral bastard. Bass said she had died in a failed escape attempt, had fallen from a three-story window and broke her back. Bass had shown him the body – **her** body – bloody, broken, empty. Miles took a few more heartbeats to collect himself once more. 

Miles licked his lips, exhaled and told his niece and Nora, “Okay. You gotta get Danny out of here.”

Bullets careened off the green cooling tank they were crouched behind – more militiamen had arrived.

Miles sniped the first shooter easily, and exchanged fire with a second. He spared a second to survey Charlie, Nora, and Danny. And then he shouted, “Go!”

He took off running to find Rachel. He tried to remember the locations of a few easily secured workrooms; places the treacherous Bass might be keeping her. A small sliver of his mind was fixated on the previously inconceivable chance for redemption he now held within his grasp. Getting Danny back for Charlie was a small step back, away from hell; saving Rachel and reuniting her with them would be a much larger one. So much of the guilt he carried was because of what he let happen to her.


	2. Reunion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- Author’s Note: Some dialogue taken from 1.4, 1.10, and 1.17 – written by Anne Cofell Saunders, Monica Owusu-Breen, and Matt Pitts.
> 
> I don’t own the characters or Revolution; I’m just playing with them for a bit for fun, not profit.

**Seven years after the Blackout**

Rachel approached the barn stated in Miles’ letter; she passed several militia privates and strolled into the open barn, a small pack on her back. A private approached her, but took his hand away from his sword at her calmly dismissive look.

“I came.” Rachel said into a murky barn, a small secret smile on her face. “Like you asked.”

The shadow, which had Miles’ broad shoulders, twitched slightly at the sound of her voice and turned around. A stern-faced Miles slowly emerged from the shadows. He studied her face expressionlessly. Rachel began to feel some apprehension; this wasn’t the Miles she knew. Perhaps her gambit wouldn’t work as easily as she and Ben had hoped.

“Miles, you promise me. Just promise I see my kids again.” Rachel requested.

Miles’ eyes flickered a bit, and he wordlessly commanded a private to cuff her with a nod of his head.

Rachel held out her hands for the private and scrutinized Miles. He sauntered back into the shadows, never saying a word, nothing at all like the man he once was. The man she once knew intimately.

Rachel stood beside the private, silent, cuffed, plotting, as Miles finished the strategy session or whatever the hell he was doing. When he was finished, he led her and the private over to the militia wagon.

“Bass and I looked for Ben for a very long time. Could have just taken him, but out of respect, I invited him to join me. Didn’t ask for you,” said Miles. _Respect eh?_ thought Rachel.

“Disappointed?” quipped Rachel, knowing full well she was baiting him, but she couldn’t resist.

Miles nodded at the private, dismissing him with a subtle gesture.

Rachel watched the private go out of the corner of her eye, wondering what that meant, but keeping her face impassive she turned to face Miles unswervingly.

Miles inquired, “Can Ben get the lights back on, or can’t he?”

Rachel replied frankly, “We both can.”

Miles gave her a puzzled look, tilting his head slightly, like a confused border collie.

This exasperated Rachel, so she retorted crisply, sharing more information than she had planned, “Miles, what did you think, that I was just sitting around making him martinis? I was project lead. I know as much about this as Ben does – more.”

Rachel looked aside and attempted to quell a trace of remorse as she expanded, “Ben has no… interest in turning the lights back on. I do." 

Miles licked his lips contemplatively, clearly wondering where exactly Rachel’s interest lay. He asked, his voice rough with suppressed emotion, his eyes unable to maintain contact, “I thought you didn’t want to see me again.”

 _That’s not exactly what I said_ , thought Rachel remembering back to the heated incident back when Charlie was a toddler and pushed it aside. _Focus on the now._ Rachel studied Miles’ reaction closely and replied indefinitely, “I’ve been thinking about a lot of things.”

Her eyes strove to meet Miles’ searching ones serenely, and after a moment, Miles reached some sort of decision and declared, “Well… we’re gonna go get Ben anyway.”

Rachel suppressed her urge to make a protest, and clenched her teeth. This was not the Miles she knew, this was General Matheson, the unyielding soldier, the Butcher of Baltimore, and his was the hand that held the red pen to use an old TA metaphor. If her gambit was going to work, she would have to appear docile, and wait for the right moment.

* * *

**Fifteen years after The Blackout**

Miles ran past secure workrooms and cells, ever wary for more militiamen or signs of Rachel. Miles ran into the next workroom and spotted a trim, blonde, woman kneeling over Strausser’s dead body, his own sword stabbed through his heart. He paused a moment to take in the scene. _His sister-in-law had killed the scariest psycho he ever met_! _She’d always been one tough cookie, but this took the cake._

“Rachel?” Miles inquired.

Rachel turned around, bewilderment clear on her face, and asked in return, “Miles?” 

Miles looked into Rachel’s face, a pleasure he thought he’d never have again, and then quickly scanned her body. He was looking for any signs of recent torture, and relief flooded him as he determined that she appeared unharmed. She looked beautiful; her fine nose was unbroken, her clear skin un-bruised, her trim yet shapely body sound. He rudely squashed the urge to run to her, to hold her, to run his hands along her body searching out scars and signs of mistreatment; he knew it would be unwanted and counter-productive.

Miles watched Rachel slowly stride towards him, stunned with relief. Miles scanned Rachel’s powerful blue eyes – so like Charlie’s, funny he once thought of Charlie’s eyes as Rachel’s, but now those pale blue eyes reminded him more of his niece – for signs of psychological torture, signs of accusation, signs of forgiveness.

Rachel slapped him, hard. He licked his lip – tasting for blood – and thought wryly, _yep I deserved that. Several times over_. He looked back into Rachel’s face, about to say something, what, he wasn’t sure, maybe a quip about her hitting like a girl, maybe a plea for forgiveness, maybe an inquiry about the past four years.

But then, a door opened, and Captain Baker entered the room with a trio of militiamen. Any thought of conversation was instantly erased from Miles’ mind as he heard Jeremy jibe, “Miles, you’re like a bad penny, man.”

Miles placed his hand on Rachel’s back and pushed her behind him, down the corridor, sounds of gunfire goading him onward.

Miles led Rachel through corridors heading for the east side of the plant. Surely Aaron had used his enormous squishy frontal lobes to deduce that all hell had broken loose, and blown the east gate sky-high.

His mind was firmly fixed on getting Rachel out of this obsolete power plant and back to her kids, needed to fulfill the promise Rachel asked of him all those years ago. The promise he tried to tell himself a thousand times he hadn’t actually agreed to.

He did not even dare to hope that Rachel would ever begin to forgive him for all the things that had happened to her when she was nominally in his custody – what **he** had done to her. He could not even imagine what had happened to her after he had left – four years alone with a deranged Bass, without him to ease Bass’ actions. She would never forgive him. Period.

Miles’ thoughts of forgiveness were rudely interrupted by the sudden, but inevitable, appearance of Bass with a trio of militiamen. _Fuck_. The shitstorm he was so hoping he’d been hoping to avoid.

Miles told Rachel to run and ignored her request for him to just come with her, communicated in the way she said his name.

Miles said, “I’ll hold them off. Go get your kids.”

Starring into Bass’s eyes once more, the first thing Miles thought of was: _they say the road to hell is paved with good intentions. What is the road to redemption paved with? Certainly not empty bottles of whiskey. I’d tried that way for four years._


	3. Breaking Point

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- Author's Note: Thank you for reading, kudos'ing, commenting, and subscribing. Each notice makes me happy.
> 
> Thank you to xyber116 for beta'ing this chapter.
> 
> Some dialogue taken from 1.11 and 1.17 – written by Anne Cofell Saunders & Paul Grellong
> 
> Trigger warnings: POV PTSD/Stockholm syndrome
> 
> I don't own the characters or Revolution; I'm just playing with them for a bit for fun, not profit.

Chapter 3: Breaking Point

* * *

**Seven years after the Blackout**

Miles directed the wagon to Ben and Rachel's homestead, Rachel quietly sitting beside him. He knew she gave in too easily; Rachel never gave up without a fight – she was spunky, a trait mostly wasted on Ben. She must know Ben and the kids were in hiding, but Miles needed some direction, some starting point.

Miles searched the house, looking for any signs that Ben would be returning to the homestead or coded messages indicating where they might be heading.

Rachel simply stood beside the wagon, watching, waiting; giving him the heebie-jeebies.

Miles asked her, "Where's Ben?" She gave him a small, secret smirk that turned ice cold when he continued, "Where's your family?"

Miles knew he had found a weakness, not that he'd truly use it, but it might help if she thought he might. He walked down the steps, giving his men an order to search the woods.

Rachel told him softly, "Don't bother. They're long gone."

Miles purposefully stepped into her personal bubble, looming over her, and asked, "Where?"

Rachel gave a small shrug, and meeting his eyes evenly replied, "I don't know. I don't know if I'm ever gonna see them again. But it's worth it, to keep them safe from you."

Miles studied her resolute face and asked, "Can you get the power back on, Rachel?"

Rachel face was carefully fixed and she replied softly, "No."

Miles asked a follow-up question while still studying her closely, she was trying to hide something, but what, "But Ben can?

Rachel responded, "It doesn't matter. You will never find him." She took the offensive and continued, "You think we haven't heard the stories?"

Miles was a little pained by the idea that she and Ben had heard all of the stories, some true, some rumor, most a bit of both, exaggerated for effect. If General Matheson was feared above all else, then he could win more battles by psychological warfare and waste fewer lives on both sides.

Rachel continued, "General Matheson, the Butcher of Baltimore. You think that we're going to give you the ability to kill more people? You are a monster."

Miles could hardly control his expression.  _It hurt to hear_ her _call him that._

Rachel pressed on, "We are ashamed to call you one of our family." That was a low blow. She  _knew_  how high he held the bonds of  _family_. Far more than this spoiled, only-child, without an extended family could  _ever_  understand. For why else had she jumped from brother to brother and back again?

Miles snapped; he grabbed Rachel's throat and pushed her against the side of the wagon, her body panting beneath his in a familiar manner. She brought her hands up, but did not struggle in his grasp. He wondered if she had any happy memories of this sort of situation, or if they were all poisoned.

Miles looked down at the familiar flushed face and replied, "That's not what you used to say about me." Rachel looked down, away from his face, reluctant to meet his eyes, but when she finally did, Miles licked his lips, taken aback by the searing fire within them.

He was a bit ashamed, he shouldn't use force with this woman, and released his hold on her throat; thumb stroking the soft underside of her chin, trying make up for his behavior. He lightly rested his hand on her heaving breast, her cuffed hands fluttered like little birds trapped against his chest.

Miles struggled for control over himself, his libido, and said, "So you thought you could just bat your eyes at me, and I'd roll over. Take you away instead of Ben, that right?"

Miles studied Rachel's serene face, looking for some sign that there was more to this, some better explanation. He was disappointed and continued, "Rachel, I cared about you. I did. Always thought you felt the same way."

Rachel looked sad, and semi-guilty, and Miles was relieved. _Ah ha, he got something out of her!_  But the words out of her mouth next squashed his triumph.

Rachel said, "We were kids. We had a cheap… and ugly fling, and not a day goes by that I don't regret it." Rachel met his searching eyes levelly.

Miles silently argued with her statements. She might have been a kid, a college co-ed, but he had just returned from a tour in Iraq. There was no way he was a kid. The Iraqi sun burned it out of you, if an IED didn't rip it out of you first. And she might call it an ugly fling, but she had instigated it. Rachel and Ben had broken up over some fight about what graduate school Ben should apply to, and Miles wasn't 100% sober at the time. Now the other thing, now that was shameful.

Her piss-ant explanation and her even stare pissed him off,  _how dare she judge him!_ Miles went to threaten that glare right out of her.

Rachel made a little squeal – like a dying rabbit – and tried to duck behind her cuffed hands. As she cowered behind her hands, he leaned in and threatened, "That is not the only thing you're gonna regret." Miles could smell a faint hint of lavender coming from her skin. She had always favored the smell. Miles turned and walked away, somewhat ashamed of his behavior;  _what was it about this woman that made him totally lose his equilibrium?_

* * *

**Fifteen years after The Blackout**

Rachel, her kids Danny and Charlie, Aaron Pittman – a stray Ben once took in after The Blackout – Miles, her… her brother-in-law, and Nora his lip-locking buddy were walking away from the annihilated Rebel camp outside of Philadelphia. Devastation she had caused. She had to attempt to mend it, to regain control over something.

Rachel wondered if this was the same Nora as six years ago, the contractor/bounty hunter Miles had been so taken with. Rachel shook herself and fiddled with her wedding ring.

She had just hatched a plan to even the playing field, and give the Rebels power and weapons. She wasn't sure if it was the best idea she'd ever had, but it certainly wasn't the worst, not by a long shot. And she knew from experience you couldn't really fight back when the other person had  **all**  the power, especially if that person was Bass. It  _was_  within her control to reach John Sanborn's house and attempt to make amends for her actions. For giving Sebastian Monroe power – and functional Blackhawk helicopters –  **Power**.

The sun was beating down on Rachel's exposed neck, giving her goose bumps. Aaron was prying, probing; trying to find out what she knew. After years of experience at walking a knife's-edge between staying true to herself and at the same time not exacerbating the situation, she knew many times silence was the best response. Rachel  **wanted**  to lash out with her tongue, or her fists, or hide in a corner. But there were no corners, no safe places – no home to go back to – and it was all her fault. She restrained herself; she had to be strong, for Danny, for Charlie.

They reached the stolen militia wagon. "You know I'm coming with you, right?" Miles stated, interrupting Rachel's anxieties. Mile continued, "Somebody's got to keep you in one piece."

"And, and that's you?" monotonously retorted Rachel – all emotion carefully suppressed, even from herself.

She dared to glare into Miles' eyes for the first time in years. " _You're_  the one who's going to make sure that nothing bad happens to me?" Rachel recalled the time she abandoned her husband and children, to when she gave her sovereignty over to a stony-faced Miles, hoping that the bonds of  _family_  – a particularly sacrosanct bond for the Matheson boys, Bass included – and her wits would be enough to protect her.  _Oh how naïve she was._

"Well it's not a discussion, Rachel," Mile declared, and Rachel – defeated – decided not to waste her breath arguing ineffectually with Miles; it never did any good.

Rachel watched Miles turn to look at his motley crew, and her children, and commanded them, "If you guys see the choppers coming, you run, you understand? Get out of sight."

Rachel turned to the beautiful, tough, suspicious, young woman she hadn't seen in near a decade. "I'm proud of you," she said.

Then she turned to her beloved, frail, little boy turned strapping stranger, "Both of you. I'll see you soon."

Danny laid on the guilt-trip, "Just come back this time, okay?"

_Damn._ Rachel didn't want to leave her hurt little boy again. Wanted to hold him close and protect him. But how could she protect him when she couldn't even protect herself? She **had**  managed to keep his secret safe for all these years, and now she needed to do this, take charge of something – prove she could do  _something_.

"I promise," vowed Rachel, and then glanced at Miles, the reason she left her family, the reason her son was such a stranger to her, her captor, her protector, "Let's go."

Rachel ponderously boarded the wagon; she sat in the passenger's seat, cognizant to the fact that Miles would never let her drive. She contemplated the trees as Miles sauntered around the wagon and clambered into the driver's seat.

As they drove away, Rachel turned around and watched her two beautiful children, hoping that she would see them once more. The wagon turned, and they were lost in the woods.

Now Rachel was alone with Miles. She felt confined, constricted, cramped. Her mind was going down a path she didn't want it to. She forced herself to breathe normally; hyperventilating wouldn't help, and it would let him know how vulnerable she was. She started silently reciting her mantra, watching the trees pass.

… _In the morning glad I see / My foe outstretched beneath the tree…_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- Author's Note: Reviews and constructive criticism are greatly appreciated :) Lines from William Blake's A Poison Tree (In the public domain)
> 
> I was angry with my friend:  
> I told my wrath, my wrath did end.  
> I was angry with my foe:  
> I told it not, my wrath did grow.
> 
> And I watered it in fears,  
> Night and morning with my tears;  
> And I sunned it with smiles,  
> And with soft deceitful wiles.
> 
> And it grew both day and night  
> Till it bore an apple bright;  
> And my foe beheld it shine,  
> And he knew that it was mine,
> 
> And into my garden stole  
> When the night had veiled the pole:  
> In the morning glad I see  
> My foe outstretched beneath the tree.


	4. So It Begins

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- Author's Note: Thank you for reading, kudos'ing, commenting, and subscribing. Each notice makes me happy.
> 
> Thank you to xyber116 for beta'ing this chapter.
> 
> Some dialogue taken from 1.11 and 1.17 – written by Anne Cofell Saunders & Paul Grellong
> 
> Trigger warnings: POV PTSD/Stockholm syndrome
> 
> I don't own the characters or Revolution; I'm just playing with them for a bit for fun, not profit.

**Seven years after The Blackout**

Miles stormed through the militia camp like a green-bellied thunderstorm – liable to turn into a destructive twister at any moment. On the edge of his senses he could feel his men approach and then turn aside, suddenly aware that their urgent business could wait.

When the message arrived saying that they had located his brother and his wife, Miles had told Bass that he could do this. That he was the only one for the job. Bass hadn't been sure, had wanted to send Major Hudson, but Miles insisted. He knew his brother. His brother was a dreamer. A dreamer who  _somehow_  knew that the power was going to go off and never come back on. A dreamer, and a  _family_  man. But instead of his brother, he had ended up with Rachel – not as easy of a nut to crack.

Miles strode into the interrogation tent past the two armed guards. He glanced around there was Corporal Mayer and Rachel – firmly tied down. Good. He nodded a dismissal to the corporal. After one quick scan of Rachel and her bindings he turned to the wash station. After such a pointless wild-goose chase what he really wanted was a stiff drink, but he couldn't stop now. Bass and the Republic depended on him. Miles thoroughly washed the road-dust off of his hands, shook the excess water off, and wiped them on a clean bit of cloth.

Rachel exclaimed, "You son of a bitch."

Miles replied, not turning around, and shook his head slightly, "You left me no choice. All you had to do was tell me where Ben is."

Rachel replied levelly, "I can't. I don't know."

Miles sighed; fuck, this wasn't going to be easy, anyway she played it. He turned from the jerry-rigged wash-table and eyed Rachel. She was tied to a chair, her hands behind her, her feet tied to the chair legs. Miles knew she got feisty when riled; who knew if she'd try to kick him in the 'nads again.

Miles knelt down in front of Rachel and placed his hands upon her knees, stroking her inner knee softly, coercing her to give in. He said, "Rachel…" and waited for her eye to meet his, he wanted to use every tool in his toolbox to convey the truth of her situation to her.

Miles continued after staring into her eyes for a few moments, "You know how bad this is gonna get for you? Do you think I care? About this?" Miles licked his lips, his eyes glancing downward to her slim frame; if he could scare her into talking then he wouldn't have to hurt her, but he was afraid she would try to call his bluff, and learn it wasn't.

Miles continued on, "Whatever we had?" He paused, "That we're  _family_?" He looked up into Rachel's poker-face, and continued, "Because I don't." He shook his head. They stared at each other, hoping the other would swerve, yield, in this messy game of 'chicken.'

Miles couldn't swerve, he had promised Bass that he could do this; he could get the information out of Ben to turn the lights back on. They needed to the get the power back for the Republic, for all the families in the Republic. And if he failed, God only knew who Bass would put in charge of getting the information out of Rachel – there were some pretty messed up I&I officers, or Corporal Strausser. She might be spoiled and manipulative, but he did still have feelings for her, and she would fare far better in his hands than in Strausser's.

However, neither swerved.

* * *

**Fifteen years after The Blackout**

Rachel woke to Miles shaking her arm; she managed to suppress her involuntary impulse to fend off this male presence. It was dark. The nebulous darkness was comforting, was familiar.

Miles was crouched beside her bedroll and declared, "It's almost dawn. We should hit the road."

Rachel knew they had many miles to go before reaching John Sanborn's house; she nodded and told him, "Just a minute, I need to pee."

Miles nodded, whether it was in permission or merely acknowledgment, Rachel didn't know. She wasn't his prisoner anymore! She wasn't  _his_  anymore! She suppressed her annoyance and crawled out of her blanket.

Rachel stepped out of the woods, her business done. The pre-dawn gloaming was slowly lightening around her. The moisture hung in the air in tangible form, a cold cloud of mist. Crickets, frogs, and other little creatures of the forest were singing their courtship tunes, attempting to make a connection before the sun rose and awoke the birds.

Rachel noted that Miles had packed away her blanket – she knew he wasn't intentionally being paternalistic – and carefully stepped around him to board the wagon. Despite the many hours spent in his presence yesterday, she just couldn't endure the thought of him being too near.

Rachel felt the weight of Miles' gaze upon her; she adjusted her shirt, trying to cover up any exposed skin – especially her back. He asked, "We ever gonna talk about… you know, this?"

"There's nothing to talk about," Rachel replied calmly, desperately wanting to stop this conversation, no  _confession_ , before it happened.

She attempted to avoid eye contact with Miles, with her brother-in-law; with the man she once considered  _family_. However, her willpower failed her and she gazed up into Miles' face; so similar, yet so different from Ben's. Same strong chin, same proud nose, more expressive eyebrows and familiar deep brown eyes…

Miles must have taken her scrutiny as permission to continue, and attempted to explain, "Rachel, I saw a body." Rachel studied Miles' eyes yet again; she broke contact, the phrase  _Words are wind_  on her mind, a phrase from Before; a phrase that seemed most suitable for now.

"It was you," said Miles. Rachel glanced back into his eyes once more. She needed to wrest control over this conversation, now.

Miles affirmed, "You gotta know that I – I would never,  _ever_  have left if I thought you were alive." She felt the sincerity and conviction he was squeezing into each word, yet she commanded herself to look away, not wanting to see it in his eyes as well. Her self-command failed her – as per usual – and their eyes met. His self-loathing was transparent beneath her scrutiny.

Miles continued, finally asking the question she knew had been weighing on his mind, "All this time, with Bass, did he  _hurt_  you?"

Rachel fought with herself. He wasn't asking about mere torture; he was asking if Bass crossed the line Miles swore never to cross. She fancied saying something flippant; she didn't want to tell Miles the truth – he didn't deserve the truth – or to give him the absolution he so desperately craved. She decided that getting into the wagon and saying nothing would be the best course of action. She just didn't have the fortitude to have this conversation right now, or maybe ever.

Miles reached out and seized her arm;  _Damn._ Rachel quelled her unconscious urge to drive him back. Rachel could tell that his need to explain was not yet quenched, and hitting him wouldn't accomplish anything – except hurt her hand. Though a nice shin-scrape might do the trick.

"Hey. Everything that happened, it's all my fault. All of it. And I will  _never_  be able to make it up to you."

Rachel was torn. It was so imperious, so patronizing, for Miles to take all the blame. On the other hand, it  _was_  his fault, if he had just let her go, none of  _that_  would have happened. She focused her mind on all of the time she had missed with her children, on her husband whom she would  _never_  get to see again, with her  _family._  She silently concurred with Miles; no he would  _never_  be able to give her back those years, those missed memories.

"And I'm sorry," Miles said simply.

Startled, Rachel looked up into his dark eyes for a dozen quick heartbeats. Miles slowly leaned down; Rachel could feel the heat and guilt roll off him in waves. She wanted to fight back, she wanted to forgive, she wanted to let  _this_  to happen, but she couldn't.

She swallowed hard, and after a few breaths she simply couldn't stand it anymore, "Step back," she commanded, trying to gather some control over  _something_  in her life, "please."

After a half-dozen rapid heartbeats, Miles reluctantly released her arm and stepped back.

Rachel was relieved. She might not be able to control herself, but luckily she could use Miles' guilt to control him. That gave her more control of her own destiny than she had had in many years. Rachel walked past Miles and climbed into the wagon; she felt his eyes rest upon her.

She fiddled with her wedding ring as she waited for him to board and set off. She knew there was several hours of travel left to reach John's house, and the sooner they got the weapons, the sooner she could return to her children. The sooner she would no longer be alone with this man – a precarious situation on many levels.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- Author's Note: This second scene was what inspired me to get back to writing fan fiction after almost a decade away. I just had to figure out what was going on in Rachel's head. I hope you like it. Reviews and constructive criticism are greatly appreciated :)


	5. Repercussions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading, commenting, and kudos'ing. Each notice makes me happy!
> 
> Thank you also to xyber116 for beta'ing this chapter.
> 
> Some dialogue taken from 1.12 and 1.17 – written by David Rambo & Melissa Glenn and Anne Cofell Saunders
> 
> Trigger warnings: POV torture, this *might* be too much for an M rating, I tried to keep it light, but if you think it is too much, I'll go up to E.
> 
> I don't own the characters or Revolution; I'm just playing with them for a bit for fun, not profit.

**Seven years after The Blackout**

Rachel observed Miles wash his hands meticulously. She was tied to a chair with her hands behind her in a militia tent. After the incident at her old homestead, they had driven off to meet up with a larger group of militiamen. Miles had led a large troop off to find Ben and the kids, and had placed her in the custody of some corporal. The two days in his custody were uneventful – she hadn't been mistreated. Then, without warning, she was dragged to this tent, and hog-tied to this chair. The corporal gleefully told her to get ready for something ominously called 'the talk box' and Miles appeared.

Rachel had acquiesced silently to this treatment by the corporal, but as soon as she was alone with Miles, she exclaimed, "You son of a bitch."

Miles countered, not turning around, shaking his head slightly, "You left me no choice. All you had to do was tell me where Ben is."

Rachel truthfully replied, "I can't. I don't know."

Miles turned around from the wash-table and stared at her like she was some piece of meat. Miles knelt down in front of Rachel and placed his hands upon her knees, stroking her inner knee softly. Rachel didn't know if it would have been scarier had he stayed standing, looming over her, but it certainly would have been a lot less creepy.

He said, "Rachel…" and waited for her eye to meet his, he clearly wanted to convey his earnestness.

Miles continued, "You know how bad this is gonna get for you? Do you think I care? About this?" Rachel locked her face into a detached, docile demeanor.

Miles continued on, "Whatever we had?" Miles licked his lips, Rachel knew that that was his tell.

He said, "That we're  _family_? Because I don't," he shook his head. Typically this was a sign that someone was telling the truth, but Rachel knew he was a skilled liar, was using a controlled micro-expression to bluff her. They stared at each other, hoping the other would swerve, yield, in this messy game of 'chicken.'

Rachel couldn't swerve; she had to protect her children, and Ben. She would **never** tell Miles that in six months Ben would leave a coded note for her at the coffee shop of their first date that would tell her where he, the kids, and Aaron, would be living. If she didn't pick up the letter, or return home, he'd leave another one at the carnival of their second date twelve months later. Rachel hoped she could win her way free and lose any possible tail quickly; Ben would continue leaving letters forever, but her memory got fuzzy past their fifth date.

Miles sighed and stood up. Rachel felt a surge of glee; she had won.

Miles walked the front of the tent and called in the corporal. He grabbed the 'talk box' and opened it up to reveal a bunch of jerry-rigged dental tools to Rachel. He handed the corporal a metal lip/jaw retractor and pulled out a ghastly pair of dental pliers for himself.

Miles nodded at the corporal, and the young man levered Rachel's mouth open. Miles loomed in and Rachel thought,  _oh damn, he wasn't bluffing._

Something of this trepidation must have shown in her eyes, because Miles paused and said, "Okay. Let's try one more time. Where is Ben?"

Rachel averted her eyes.  _She wasn't gonna give up Ben and the kids over a little oral surgery. If this was to be her penance for what she had done to the world, then that would be that._

Miles nodded at the corporal, and he released the retractor.

Rachel wiggled her jaw back and forth in an effort to relax it, and Miles repeated, "Where is Ben?"

Rachel glared up into the familiar face and quipped, "If you wouldn't mind, my left top molar has been bothering me recently."

Miles stonily nodded at the corporal, and he levered her jaw open once more. Miles loomed in and took the aforementioned left top molar firmly in the grip of his pliers. He waited there for a few rapid breaths and then Rachel's world condensed down to one blindingly painful pinpoint – the nerves in the root of her molar, screaming at her. She screamed along with her poor nerves, any conscious thought vaporized in a blaze of agony.

* * *

**Fifteen years after The Blackout**

Miles adjusted the chestnut mare's saddlebags, ensuring his gear was evenly loaded to minimize chafing. Miles hadn't really spent any time with horses prior to the Blackout, sure he had ridden a few times at Boy Scout camp, but since the Blackout he had really come to appreciate horses and their different personalities. The Rebels loaned him the mare, and her saddlebags; he hadn't had the chance to get to know her yet, but mares in general just seemed to like him.

Miles glanced over to the house and saw Charlie leaning against a pillar on the front porch, watching him, watching him leave her just as he had said he wouldn't.  _Fuck._ Miles recalled Maggie's death. How incredibly bizarre it had felt to comfort Charlie; how Charlie's slight form shook in his arms as she grieved. How even though he didn't know the prim British chick, he had felt an aching rawness in his chest at her death, a rawness he hadn't felt in near a decade.

Miles felt a twinge of guilt about abandoning Charlie, but brushed it aside. Miles was helping her revenge Danny's death. She wanted this. He needed this penance. It was his fault. It was his fault Charlie's brother died. Had the rocket launcher not been knocked out of his hands, had he been able to use it, then Danny would still be alive. Charlie would still have her brother; Rachel would still have her son.

Miles turned back to the saddlebags, checking all the straps. Miles sensed Rachel approaching; she asked, "Do you really have to leave so soon?"

"Why?" asked Miles, turning his head to study Rachel – her expression was level, guarded.

"You want me around?" Scoffed Miles, mightily suppressing a flicker of hope that she did, that she had begun to forgive him; that she felt an echo of before.

Rachel, surely aware of the wound she was picking at – she  _knew_  he hadn't meant to leave her last time – said, "Not me. Charlie. It would be better for her if you were here."

Mile scanned Charlie moping on the porch, and then looked back at Rachel. It was nice that Rachel trusted him around her daughter. He wasn't sure he would if he were her. Miles' voice was laden with meaning when he asked Rachel, "How have I made  _anything_  better?"

He brushed past Rachel. His mind was focused on their past, on the loss of Danny, on his need to attempt to make some sort of amends for the mountain of misdeeds between them.

He went to grab the last bit of supplies he, and Nora, would need to find Jim Hudson. Find Jim and pick up his old life for Danny, and Charlie, and Rachel, and Nora. Walk down the same road as before, but hopefully this time in the opposite direction, not further down to hell. Hopefully, he could avoid becoming the man he once was.


	6. Truth Be Told

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- Author's Note: Thank you all for reading, reviewing, and following. Each notice makes me happy!
> 
> Thank you also to xyber116 for beta'ing this chapter.
> 
> Some dialogue taken from 1.12 – written by David Rambo & Melissa Glenn.
> 
> Trigger warnings: POV torture/Aftermath of Torture
> 
> I don't own the characters or Revolution; I'm just playing with them for a bit for fun, not profit.

**Seven years after The Blackout**

Rachel stared at the glowing fairies frolicking about the Coleman lantern left in the tent. On some level she knew they weren't fairies, merely moths, but as long as she could watch the fairies, her mouth bothered her less.

Gradually, the fairies turned back into moths, and the brief respite from agony faded. Rachel could tell that the morphine Miles had given her was wearing off. She wondered if Miles gave all of his prisoners morphine, or if there was a shred of human feeling left in him for her. It didn't matter, morphine or no, she wouldn't talk. She thought about all of the suffering and death she had indirectly caused. This was her penance.

As her liver continued to flush the morphine from her system, Rachel thought about the concept of penance. She had been raised by two agnostics, but had been baptized and had taken a class – not quite a confirmation, but something similar – prior to her marriage to Ben, for Ben's father and their church. Mr. Matheson had been pretty Catholic and had even pushed his eldest son to consider the clergy when he was growing up. Ben never had the heart to tell his dad that he had stopped believing long ago, and they have even had Charlie baptized for him.

Rachel wondered if Miles still believed; she had seen that he was still wearing his St. Michael medallion, tucked underneath his militia uniform. He had rarely taken it off, even during sex, but hadn't wanted to talk about it. Rachel had had to look it up online. Much later Rachel had asked Ben if he had a Saint's medallion, and he had shown her his St. Benjamin medallion, tucked away in a box of childhood mementos.

The seeping hole in Rachel's gums ached but it was minor in comparison to the shooting, shivering pain sent by her ravaged root nerves. Rachel wondered if faith would be a comfort in a time like the present, but decided with all the blood on her hands; hell-on-earth or biblical hell, it was all the same.

Pain, moths, and gloomy musings were Rachel's boon companions until Miles opened the tent flap. Rachel wanted to spit a mouthful of blood at him, but knew it would hurt her far more than it would him.

Miles was accompanied by the ubiquitous corporal, who was carrying a chair. He set it down in front of Rachel's and left the tent.

Miles sat down and earnestly said, "The morphine seemed to help a lot, but it should be about out."

Then Miles got grave, "So, you have a choice… more morphine, or another tooth."

Rachel blinked at Miles – the residual morphine, or some byproduct of the crude preparation, made it hard for her to focus on Miles' face – it seemed like he didn't want to do this, to be here. She dropped her head, and thought it was odd. If he didn't have the stomach for torture, she was sure there were plenty of others in the militia who did. 'The General' could just delegate.

Rachel painfully whimpered something – she wasn't quite sure what it was herself – and Miles leaned forward and said eagerly, "Tell me, where is Ben?"

Rachel steeled herself and muttered, "Another tooth, no matter what you think of me, I won't betray my kids."

Miles rocked back into his chair – Rachel could hear the chair creak – and was silent for a moment. Rachel couldn't see his face, couldn't see what he was thinking, couldn't try to plan a counter-move. Miles said somewhat harshly, "I won't hurt your kids. They're my niece and nephew, my  _family_."

Rachel lifted her head up and forced her pupils to focus, she repeated, "Another tooth."

Miles let out a gust of air and was silent once again. It felt like several lifetimes passed, each moment Rachel's molar nerves becoming more and more painful, when Miles asked, "What about the power? Can you turn the power back on?"

Rachel whimpered once more, she and Ben had planned out several misdirections that might work, but plan A was to play dumb – keep silent – and hope he'd lose interest. Rachel's plan D was to die before destroying the world again, but Ben didn't know that.

Rachel muttered through the pain, "Yes, I can turn the power back on." She hung her head in real pain and mock defeat. She heard Miles softly mutter, "Thank you God" and the ordered the corporal by the door to fetch some more morphine and some whiskey.

Rachel murmured, "Paper, and a pen." Miles repeated this request in a shout.  _So it begins_ , thought Rachel.

* * *

**Fifteen years after The Blackout**

Miles' mind was in a fretful loop. He'd been keeping them at a hard pace ever since he'd seen the devastated hospital that was once the Rebel's "Echo Base." He thought it was funny that the Rebels were using Star Wars names; they must think pretty highly of themselves. Miles' chief concern was locating the tattered remains of his – no, Ben's – family.

Miles knew Nora was trying to keep him calm as she led Jim and him to another base, but her reassurances really didn't help. Miles stomach was a tangled knot of vipers. The snakes had killed and eaten the butterflies miles back. Dusk fell, as they were getting close – or so Nora said. Miles smelled smoke from a mile away. As they grew nearer he saw several campfires.

Miles was more relieved than he wanted to admit to himself when he saw Aaron. Aaron and Nora exchanged a few words as Miles scanned the clearing. He couldn't see them.

Miles interrupted, asking Aaron, "Where's Rachel and Charlie?" Miles followed Aaron's eye-line to see Rachel standing alone by a campfire. Miles frantic mental loop was calmed, as were the snakes in his stomach. Rachel was safe. Oh how Miles wanted to go to her, hold her, let her cry into his shoulder. But it was his fault she was grieving her son; she wouldn't want to commiserate with the likes of him, even if she  _had_  begun to forgive him again.

Miles watched Charlie approach her mother. Miles watched them talk; he studied their body language intensely, trying to make out what they might be talking about. He hoped they were mending the rift between them. A rift he caused by him taking Rachel away from her family. Jim was right; he  _was_ a fucking wrecking-ball.

Miles watched them hug and cry together, comfort each other; he felt awful. He was glad Rachel had her daughter back; he was glad Charlie had her mother, but he was also selfish. He wanted to join in that hug; he wanted to console them, and grieve with them. He didn't deserve it. As he had told Jim earlier, men like him don't get loving families, and even when they inherit them wholesale, all they do is fuck 'em up royally.

Miles couldn't rip his eyes away from the duo despite the pain. Miles thought back to what happened with Emma, with Rachel, with Bass, with Nora, and even to losing Danny right after finding him. It was verifiable. Everyone he ever touched got hurt.

Miles felt Nora's small, warm hand reach for his, and returned its embrace, taking some small measure of relief from knowing at least Nora had begun to forgive him. Miles turned his head slightly, but couldn't bear to look at Nora. He tried to acknowledge her help somehow – to let her know how much her forgiveness and friendship meant to him – but his mouth was too dry, he swallowed, he licked his lips to try to work up some moisture, but in the end he remained silent. Nora always could understand his silences.

Miles watched Rachel and Charlie continue to embrace, Rachel's wedding ring glinting in the firelight, triggering another stab of guilt in Miles' heart. Miles persisted in watching silently as Charlie slipped into a child-like slumber, the cry clearly having been soul-cleansing, and watched Rachel watch Charlie sleep.

Miles wondered, not for the first time, how Rachel was holding up after all of those years with Bass. Each time he brought up the subject, he was shot down. Rachel didn't wake up screaming like Before – which was good – but she hardly slept either. She was different from Before. She no longer was as twitchy as a rabbit, but was more all-eyes like an owl. The flashes of irritability and troughs of apathy were the same though. He just wished she saved her anger for him; Charlie didn't deserve it. Miles crept away from the peaceful yet melancholy scene thinking,  _God; I'm like the anti-Midas, everyone and everything I touch turns to shit._

 


	7. Prelude

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- Author's Note: Thank you for reading, kudos'ing, commenting, and subscribing. Each notice makes me happy!
> 
> Thank you also to xyber116 for beta'ing this chapter.
> 
> Some dialogue taken from 1.13 – written by Monica Owusu-Breen & Matt Pitts.
> 
> Trigger warnings: POV PTSD/Stockholm syndrome, aftermath of Torture
> 
> I don't own the characters or Revolution; I'm just playing with them for a bit for fun, not profit.

**Seven years after The Blackout**

Miles studied the drawing – no diagram – Rachel had made. There were many straight lines connecting to other lines, zigzags, some triangles, and slashed lines. It really looked like a demented subway diagram except it was all done in graphite and everything was all squared-off. There were several-digit numbers written over some of the zigzags and the beginnings of a parts list.

Rachel had begun drawing the moment Miles untied her right hand, and handed her the pencil. Miles had retied the left hand down and stepped back to watch her draw with fierce determination and ferocious speed. It was like watching a great cat stalk and kill an antelope – no wasted movements, just single-minded focus, beautiful and yet a bit intimidating too.

When the other private returned, he had had to make her stop to swish-and-spit some whiskey to keep the wound clean. She had whimpered in pain when she did, but had done it without complaint, she clearly understood the reason behind the order.

She almost didn't appear to notice the pain – which Miles knew to be agonizing – while focused on drawing. He was certain she was going to draw half and then demand morphine, but she didn't request the drug until she had said she had finished the diagram for the "Field-effect Power Transducer."

The corporal had injected Rachel with the morphine as Miles looked over the diagram for the first time. He couldn't make heads or tails of it, but he had some folks back in Philly who were brainy-types and should be able to tell if it could do what she said it could do – bring back the power in a localized area.

After he had given the diagram the once over, she asked for it back, and started writing down parts that she would need until the morphine hit her like an elephant-tranquilizer. Currently, she was slumped in the chair, head resting on her left shoulder, her free right arm dangling.

Miles set the diagram down on the wash table and knelt before Rachel. He looked up into her peaceful face and thought,  _you couldn't really tell what had happened, except for the smear of blood-whiskey on her chin, and a few dried blood drops_. He walked back over to the wash-table and moistened the handkerchief. He carefully, almost reverently, erased any trace evidence of the torture.  _Good. That's better,_  he thought looking at her unblemished face. He ran one calloused finger pad along her soft cheek. It was strange that someone so determined would be so soft. Miles thought he remembered some saying about some British queen having an iron fist in a velvet glove, and that was Rachel.

She'd lead you along, docile until you crossed a line and then  _wham_  brick wall. Miles should have known she wouldn't give up the location of Ben and the kids, but he had to try, time was of the essence. The Republic had united most of the eastern seaboard – the Trenton campaign had been the last big battle. The New York area was a wasteland and the Massachusetts Militia rolled over and showed their bellies as soon as they heard the Butcher of Baltimore had set his eyes on them. But the Georgia Federation was a different story. They needed something more, like power, to bring the damn Peach Eaters to heel, to protect the Republic.

Rachel's determination – and the time crunch – was the reason he skipped so many of the classic torture steps. He needed Rachel to crack hard and fast, but didn't want to lead to any permanent scarring. He skipped sleep deprivation, stress positions, and water-boarding for the first reason, and wouldn't let Strausser or an I&I officer at her for the second. Strausser especially. He was known to indulge in a bit of rape, and there was no way in hell he'd let him near his brother's wife, near Rachel.

Miles had been worried that moving onto tooth extraction was either too much or not enough. But Rachel didn't appear to be broken, merely cracked enough to give up some information she held in lower regard. That was fine by him. Bass wouldn't care how he got the power on, just that he had.

Miles ghosted his fingers along Rachel's free right arm, she had rolled the light shirt she was wearing up to her elbow, and her forearm was soft, lightly speckled, with a shimmer of graphite on the underside. She had been so focused on drawing her thing-a-ma-jig that she hadn't noticed the slight smearing. Miles attempted to rub off the graphite with his thumb but stopped at Rachel's moan, she shifted her head to her other shoulder and continued sleeping off the morphine.

Miles shook himself and stood up. He grabbed another hank of rope and tied down her right arm. He didn't trust her alone with a free hand. No fucking way.

Miles paused at the tent entrance, looking back at Rachel. He ruthlessly suppressed any guilt at her condition. He had done what he needed to do for the good of the Republic, and she had done what she felt she needed to do for the good of her family. It wasn't her fault she was so narrow-minded that she couldn't see past the rumors. Couldn't see the fact that they'd be better off with a strong republic to protect them from Georgia, from Texas.

* * *

**Fifteen years after The Blackout**

Rachel stormed away from the Rebel base, into the night. She had to clear her head.  _She simply could not comprehend the woman her little happy girl had become. Her baby was so strong, and so determined. It made her so proud, yet damn, it aggravated her. She was proud she had a daughter who could take care of herself. One who was brave and resourceful, and thought of others in a crisis; one who didn't need her at all. She knew she'd sleep better knowing all that, but at the same time it was incredibly annoying to have to face off against that sort of iron will. And bittersweet that she wasn't needed anymore, not that Charlie ever really needed her, unlike tiny Danny._

The real holdup was, she had nothing to do with the sort of woman her daughter had become. Sure she had provided her slightly more than half of her genes, a wholesome pre-natal environment, as well as a secure and warm environment during her childhood; but this resolute woman had been shaped by something much more powerful, and much more recent.

The little girl Ben and she raised would have protested killing Neville based on principles, not practicality. Would have reacted emotionally, not pragmatically. Rachel knew precisely the architect of this new pragmatic stranger – Miles. Miles had a compelling charisma, almost a van der Waal force, able to pull people into his sphere of influence and change them.

Rachel had to sort herself out, had to learn to accept. She knew she didn't have Miles strong personality, but maybe, just maybe, she could use her weaker electrostatic force to… Charlie was all she had left, her only reason to keep living, Rachel had to do what little she could to protect even a little bit of the happy – moral – little girl Charlie once was.

Rachel recalled with dread The Slap. Maybe Charlie  **would**  be better off without her broken mother. She couldn't help Danny, couldn't help herself, why should she fool herself into thinking she could help Charlie?

"Rachel?" a voice interrupted her contemplation,  _his_  voice. Rachel didn't want to stop, wanted to fume off into the night, but his van der Waal force, so much stronger than a simple magnetic force, drew her in.

"You – you okay?" Miles asked.

Rachel looked at him, and said despondently, "In what world does it turn out that you're better for Charlie than I am?"

The light from the trashcan-fire flickered on Miles' face, strengthening his already strong cheekbones. Rachel couldn't stand to look at him anymore and turned and walked away.

"What do you mean?" Asked Miles, concern coating his voice. She could hear him follow her.

Rachel couldn't bear it any longer; her only reason in the world to keep living might be better off without her. The tears she'd been holding in all week flowed of their own volition.

"Hey! What – what happened?" asked Miles.

She was deeply mortified at showing such weakness in front of Miles, but at the same time she knew that despite their vast history, despite their differences, despite her current feelings, he wouldn't let the wave of loss she felt for her son – for her daughter – drown her. Or the undertow of shame following it, either.

"Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey," he reassured her. Drawn to him, she stepped back into his embrace. She restrained her instinctive urge to brush off any male standing behind her,  _this was Miles,_ and relaxed into the safe harbor of his familiar strong arms. The strangely comforting feel of his chin resting on her shoulder reassured her, helped her purge her anger at having been denied the pleasure of eliminating Tom Neville, of doing what little she could to keep her family safe and take revenge for what he'd done to her family.

Rachel turned into Miles' warm arms. She held on to him, onto the clarity he provided, knowing with certainty, that just as with van der Waals forces, once he left, his effects would go with him. She felt him stroke her hair, and let that familiar reassuring motion draw out all the rage, grief, and uselessness stagnating in her lymphatic system.

 


	8. Echoes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- Author's Note: Thank you all for reading and kudos'ing. Each notice makes me happy!
> 
> Thank you also to xyber116 for beta'ing this chapter.
> 
> Some dialogue taken from 1.13, written by Monica Owusu-Breen & Matt Pitts.
> 
> Trigger warnings: POV PTSD/Stockholm syndrome
> 
> I don't own the characters or Revolution; I'm just playing with them for a bit for fun, not profit.

**Seven years after The Blackout**

As soon as Alec unlocked Rachel's cell, Miles threw open the door and tossed her drawing at her. "You drew the electrical diagram for a fucking toaster oven!" Alec closed the cell door after him.

Rachel deftly caught the diagram and retorted, "Well, what did you expect, Miles? That I wouldn't try to do whatever it took to protect my kids, and myself. Of _course_ I'd lie to you!"

Miles had to restrain himself from thwacking her. She was sitting calmly on the cot in her 5'X10' cell, her knees tucked up under her chin, her thumb and forefinger twisting her wedding ring round and around – her tell – she may look calm, but that was just a mask.

She resignedly looked at him and said, "There is no magical way to turn the lights back on. Before, Ben and I were working on a project to make unlimited green energy from capturing the sun's light without having to use expensive and fragile solar panels."

Rachel stopped her fidgeting, and gracefully rose and started walking towards Miles. He tensed, what was she going to do?

She continued, "It didn't work. The DOD took our project and turned it into a weapon – a weapon they unwittingly used on the world. God only knows what happened – if it was on purpose or not. No one knows how to fix it – and I tried for years, for my kids, for all our kids. For all we know, it's God's punishment for our hubris."

As she finished the last bit, she struck, swift as a cobra, stroking the underside of Miles chin and pulling out his St. Michael medallion. Miles quickly restrained his instinctive counter-attack. She held his medallion, studying it, and asked in the tone of detached curiosity, "After all you've been through, after all you've done, you still believe?"

Miles nodded, wondering what her point was, and trying to ignore the effect of her near presence.

Rachel continued to stand right beside him, staring at his medallion. She said almost wistfully, "I wish I could believe."

Rachel continued, her voice still even, her body still close, her eyes still fixed on the sword-wielding figure on his medallion, "Miles,  _I_  caused this. It was my idea to start a green energy company. And I let the DOD take the project in exchange for experimental medical care for Danny. The Blackout is my fault. And Ben's."

Rachel released his medallion and stepped back, looking into his eyes almost pleadingly, "Ben moved on, and actually enjoys this simpler life. Can you believe it? I want the power back on, I want to Skype with my mother, I want to wipe my ass with toilet paper. But Miles, it can't happen, there is  **no**  way it'll happen. If you can't accept that, then please, kill me now, 'cause nothing you do to me will change that undeniable fact."

Miles was shocked at this turn of events; this was starting to feel more like a confessional than an interrogation, Rachel's earnestness and truthfulness engraved on every syllable. Mile fixated on her last statement, and asked, "You want to die?"

Rachel, her clear blue eyes still staring into his own, said monotonously, "Have for some time now." She forced a fake smile to her face, attempting to and failing at undercutting her previous statement.

Miles knelt down before her, holding her hands in his, he ignored her cold wedding band, focusing on her soft palms.  _What had she been through for this previously vivacious woman to desire death so readily_?  _Why hadn't Ben fixed her? She was_ his  _wife. His to have and to hold._ Miles shook himself out of it, he asked her earnestly "Why?"

Rachel pulled her hands free and sat back down on her cot, facing away from him. She was silent a while and then said, "Primarily, all the guilt about The Blackout being my much-corrupted brainchild, causing all of that death. But also, I have no skills to help my kids – Ben had that Eagle Scout trap stuff – but my kids didn't really need me, don't need me anymore. I have no purpose, no reason to go on."

Miles wanted to hold her and tell her – show her – that she did have a reason to go on, but her next sentence obliterated this feeling.

Rachel glared into his eyes and said, "In short, I'd much rather die than risk you hurting my family like you hurt me."

Miles was too startled to be angry at first. Here he was, thinking they were having a  _moment_  and she goes and stabs him in the kidney.  _Shit._ He stood up and slapped her, twice, and after he wrested control over his rage, he turned and knocked on the cell door. While waiting for Alec to unlock the door, he turned at looked at the woman huddled in the corner of her cot, in the corner of her cell, hand to her face. Iron fist, velvet glove, indeed.

* * *

**Fifteen years after The Blackout**

Rachel was packing her bag; thinking about exactly what she needed to optimize her and Aaron's chances of actually making it to The Tower, and wondering if she'd need a gun. She had already packed a pouch of some of Neville's diamonds, a borrowed change of clothes, and some extra socks – you never could pack enough spare socks.

Miles stormed into the room, his brown coat actually billowing behind him – like in a movie, "Charlie says you're leaving."

"Yeah, Aaron and I are going to The Tower. We have to deactivate the nanites; we're going to return the power to the people."Replied Rachel, thinking:  _Damn, how many times did she have to have this conversation anyways?_

"Do you have any idea what you're doing?" Miles asked; Rachel knew he was right to question her judgment. Hell, she questioned her own judgment; she'd made a lot of wrong bloody calls, but it wasn't like Miles had a better track record. If anything, his record was worse than hers.

"Yes," she said straightforwardly.

"Forget it. You're not goin'," asserted Miles.

"It's not up to you." Rachel stridently pointed out his patronization; she wasn't his prisoner anymore, wasn't  _his_  anymore. She collected a few unmarked tins of food, mostly for trade purposes.

Miles said, "Say you make it across the Plains Nation, to this Tower, and you flip the lights back on – all big ifs. Why the hell would you want to?"

Rachel set the food tins down beside her bag. "Miles" she reprimanded, and palmed some first aid supplies – an ace bandage, some gauze, and one precious tube of antibiotic ointment.

"Give power to everyone? To Georgia, to California, Texas. Oh, God, Texas? What do you think they're going to do with it?" Miles ranted. Rachel remembered how Miles used to rant about Texas during their dinners, before. It had been one of his favorite topics, she thought with the faintest traces of amusement.

Rachel walked up to Miles and looked him straight in his deep, soulful, brown eyes and explained, "The bad guys have it. The good guys need it too." Unsaid was her need to reclaim herself, to reassert the value of doing things for herself, to show that she still had control over her life. To show that she was an independent and worthwhile being.

Miles licked his lips and shook his head in frustration, "No one's a good guy."  _Oh, how well I know that, probably more intimately than you, and isn't there some Shakespearean line along those lines – one man in his time plays many parts and smile, smile, and be a villain?_   _No, that's a mixed metaphor. Oh well,_ mused Rachel as she placed the medical supplies in her bag.

Rachel stepped back to Miles, she needed to take control of the conversation, "Listen, I need you to look out for Charlie." As much as Rachel needed to be needed, she also needed to fix the world she shattered, and maybe, at the same time fix her shattered self; then, maybe she could return to protect and heal her once-happy girl. In the meantime, she knew she could trust Miles to protect Charlie's skin, maybe not her psychological well-being, but certainly her skin.

"Don't," he commanded, shaking his head, "Just stop talking like you're dead already."

"Promise me that you'll take care of her," requested Rachel, ignoring his command.

"That's supposed to be your job," quipped Miles, in poor taste.

Rachel gave Miles a significant look, pointing out that it hadn't been her job in a long time, and she had utterly failed recently. Charlie would be better off with Miles, without her shattered husk of a mother. It didn't really matter whether Rachel survived or not. Rachel was afraid Miles could read the desperation in her eyes, moved back to the counter with her supplies and started packing the tins.

Miles sighed heavily. "Rachel… look at me." Miles grabbed her arm forcefully, turning her around. "I'm not letting you do this." He said, his voice crackling with emotion.

He shook his head forcefully; Rachel hesitated, looking into that Matheson face with its strong chin, prominent nose, expressive eyebrows, and deep _brown_  eyes. She tried to work up the fortitude to say what needed to be said. She placed her hands upon his chest – she was doing this, she was actually touching a man out of her own free will, but then again, Miles didn't really count.

She entreated, "You can't be who you were. You need to take better care of  _her_ … than you ever took of me."

Rachel waited, watching; watching to see her words get through to him. She knew his weak spot – his guilt over her – and would leverage the hell out of it to ensure Charlie's safety.

Rachel saw him lick his lips, his tell – like a cat moving its tail – and wondered what was going on inside that mind of his; and then, suddenly, hungrily, he was kissing her. Rachel brought her hands up, to protect herself. Then she could feel his stubble on her chin and cheek, the warmth of his nimble lips, and allowed the kiss to continue.

Rachel placed one hand against the nape of his neck, and then the other. She felt a rush of warmth to her womb, and cupped his neck with one hand while playing with his coarse hair with the other. Miles grabbed her lower back, pulling her up towards him. Rachel felt a surge of fear and shame that he would feel her scars. Her fears were washed away with a fresh wave of sensation.

Rachel played with his hair, and wrapped one arm around his head to pull him down, towards her. Miles nudged them backwards until her back was against the counter. There was some faint, easily ignored, clattering as Miles pushed her against her supplies. But the added leverage was oh so nice. For once Rachel's mind was firmly in the present,  **enjoying**  the present, not tainted by the past, or worried about the future. She pulled him down onto her, the feel of his lips against hers, his stubble scraping against her chin, his hand running along her back, and his body pressed against hers in so many warm and inflamed places was so intoxicating, it certainly couldn't be wrong.

He backed up a millimeter, and she wrapped one leg around his, desperate for more contact, but he continued to back away.

She panted for breath, and pulled her hands down, away. She shouldn't have given in. She heard Miles sigh, and knew he regretted it too. She couldn't look at him right now – her mind had flashed back to that night oh so many years ago. The night she had forcefully stopped Miles from restarting their affair; the night she told him she didn't want to see him again until he was sober.

She fought the serotonin and oxytocin rushing in her brain for a clear thought.  _Damn_. She tried to say something, but all she could feel was shame, and fear, and disgust. She turned away, leaving the room, leaving Miles and his damn charisma. She should be focusing on killing Bass, revenging Danny, not on whatever the hell Miles just tried to draw her into.

_...In the morning glad I see /_ _My foe outstretched beneath the tree._


	9. The Descent

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- Author's Note: Thank you all for reading, kudos'ing, and commenting. Each notice makes me happy! This chapter is dedicated to LLCoyote and Kaylee for their lovely reviews back at fan fiction.net :)
> 
> Thank you also to xyber116 for beta'ing this chapter.
> 
> Trigger warnings: POV torture, allusions to Non-con
> 
> I don't own the characters or Revolution; I'm just playing with them for a bit for fun, not profit.

**Seven-and-a-half years after The Blackout**

Rachel didn't know what time it was, what day is was, even what the damn month was. All she knew was that Bass was done "whiffle-waffling around," and wanted to know how to turn the power back on by "any means necessary."

After that poorly executed interview with Miles, he had turned her over to Bass. Miles was  _supposed_  to have let her go, but things didn't exactly work out according to her scheme.

And Bass was worse; Miles hadn't told him anything and he didn't believe that the power couldn't be turned back on. He had tried being courteous for a few months; then he started threatening her – and her family – for information and eventually, after many attempts to convince him she knew nothing, something inside him snapped.

She didn't know how long she'd been in this tenebrous broom-closet. At random intervals a militiaman opened the door, blinded her with his lamp-light, exchanged her slop-bucket and water-pitcher for fresh, and asked if she was ready to talk. She never was; if this was her cosmic punishment for ending the world, then so be it.

She didn't know how long she been in this 36" x 18" x 6' cell. All she knew was that she had become apathetic and no longer felt hungry or thirsty. She estimated that it had been more than a week but less than three.

In the beginning, she plotted ways to escape. She picked at her handcuffs, trying to deduce their mechanism, and thus how to open them. It seemed so easy in the movies, but without tools it was damn near impossible. She pried a nail out of the closet paneling, using teeth, fingers, and determination. She eventually damaged the locking mechanism sufficiently. In the beginning, the militiamen came in pairs, one to watch her while the other swapped out the buckets. They noticed her damaged handcuffs, and this triggered Bass' first visit…

She shook her head, forcibly dislodging the memory.

In the beginning, she kept herself hydrated, knowing that water was vital for catabolism. She had tried to keep herself occupied by trying to remember exactly how her body fat was being broken down into energy by beta-oxidation followed by the Krebs cycle, but after several futile hours gave up, it had been too many years, and biochemistry was never her favorite sub-discipline of chemistry. Inorganic chemistry – especially studying silicon – now, that was  _pure_  chemistry. So, she listed off all of the common silicon dopants like boron and phosphorous, and eventually tried to name all the Lanthanides and Actinides. Her frustration at being unable to remember one of the fourteen Lanthanides made her switch to something easier.

Rachel easily named all fifty states, and most of their capitals. Boring.

She then switched to reciting poetry. Ben had gone through a phase where he'd write Shakespearean sonnets on notes for her. Ben was always seeing her through his own lens. He thought poetry would keep their marriage together, when she'd rather he just do half of the dishes.

As far as poetry was concerned, Rachel personally preferred William Blake's cynical Songs of Experience. Rachel recited the Clod and the Pebble, but the poor naïve little Clod of Clay reminded her too much of Ben. The Tyger reminded her of their own hubris, of creating the nanites that ended the world, and then knowingly turning them over to Randall Flynn. But A Poison Tree, now that was a poem that fit this situation oh so well. "I was angry with my foe: / I told it not, my wrath did grow. / And I watered it in fears, / Night and morning with my tears; / And I sunned it with smiles, / And with soft deceitful wiles. / … /In the morning glad I see / My foe outstretched beneath the tree."

She had recited A Poison Tree a hundred thousand times, under her breath, a mantra – an incantation against Bass. But now, now she didn't even have the spirit, the energy, to recite the poem. She just sat knees-to-chin, fiddling with her wedding ring, next to the full water-pitcher and the empty slops-bucket. She knew she should be concerned that she hadn't used the bucket in who-knew-how-long, but that took energy, energy she just didn't have.

* * *

**Fifteen years after The Blackout**

Miles stared longingly at his almost empty bottle of scotch. Sometimes he wished he could literally crawl into a bottle. The opposing forces of trying to keep his word to Rachel, the need to have Charlie not hate him, and trying to lead without becoming "The General" again were tearing him apart. He knew the fighting was hardening Charlie – probably too much, certainly more than Rachel would want – and she refused to get help from him, even talk to him, until he told her what he had done to her mom.

 _God_. Where to start? Before Miles would be able to confess half of his sins Charlie would have fled from the sight of him, and would never look at him with those blue eyes again. Those eyes saw him as a better man, a man worthy of respect. He had tried lately to be that kind of man. For her.

If Miles started chronologically, he would have to tell Charlie about how he had had a weekend-fling with a hot, kinky, (or so he thought at the time) college co-ed, and had found out Sunday afternoon when Ben came over to apologize, that she was Ben's girlfriend of two-and-a-half years. Rachel claimed they had broken up, Ben said it was just a stupid fight, and Miles was caught in the middle of  _that_  shit-storm. It took years for Ben to forgive him, and Rachel just pretended it never happened.

Miles took a swig of scotch. Charlie  _might_  not hate him after that story, but she would after the next.

Everyone – Bass, Miles, Ben, Rachel, and little Charlie were staying at Dad's place in Indiana after the Monroe family funeral. Miles had found Bass at his family's graves and stopped him from doing anything stupid. They had gone to a bar to properly mourn, and Miles had gotten too shit-faced to drive them home. He had called Ben's cell for a ride, but Rachel picked up instead. A very pregnant Rachel picked them up in her station wagon and had helped Miles get Bass situated on the couch. He had been staying in Miles' old room, but Rachel didn't think they could get him up to the second floor. Rachel was helping Miles up the stairs to his old room and he had gotten a whiff of her lavender body-wash and his mind flashed back to their fling.

Miles had pressed her against the banister, kissing her neck, tangling his hands in her hair. Apparently, she had told him 'no' several times but he didn't remember that. What he could remember was that he had her blouse halfway off when his world contracted to a painful starburst centered on his balls. He had leaned against the other banister while she told him, "Get out of this house, I don't want to see your sorry-ass face until you're sober."

This would probably be the point where Charlie spat at him and stormed off into the night, never to be seen by him again.  _Every girl certainly would want to hear that her Uncle almost raped her pregnant Mom, right?_  Miles snorted at himself. He had harbored a lot of guilt about that incident and after he had sobered up – on the Monroe back porch of all places – he had called Bass and told him as little as possible while getting him to pack up both of their shit and leave the house. That was the last time Miles saw Rachel until years after The Blackout. He knew she never told Ben what had happened and he had made every excuse he could to avoid Ben and his family – he couldn't bear looking at 'em. The only time he couldn't get out of it, was watching little Charlie during tiny Danny's surgery – He just couldn't say no to Ben, not under those circumstances – but at least he hadn't had to see Rachel.

Miles shot-gunned the rest of the scotch in his glass and poured himself another.

If, which was highly doubtful, Charlie had stuck around to hear more – maybe insisting that Alec wouldn't know any of this, thus he must have done something else – then he have to get to the event that would really drive her away. He had taken Rachel away from Charlie. Had kept her away from her family for all these years. Had been directly in charge of her keeping for most of three years. Had tortured her, had let Bass torture her, hadn't questioned Bass when he said she had died – at least not after seeing the broken body.

Miles rolled a slug of scotch around in his mouth.  _Yeah, there was no fucking way he was gonna tell Charlie any of that_ , he thought, but he didn't want to lie to her either. Was there some part of the truth he could tell her, convince her by omission that that was it, that that what Alec was telling her about, without her utterly despising him?

Miles wondered what would happen to him if Charlie started hating him; if he could fall any further than the sinkhole she had found him in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- Author's Note: Reviews and constructive criticism are greatly appreciated :)
> 
> Referenced William Blake's Poems (In the public domain)
> 
>  **The Clod and the Pebble**  
>  Love seeketh not Itself to please,  
> Nor for itself hath any care;  
> But for another gives its ease,  
> And builds a Heaven in Hell's despair.
> 
> So sung a little Clod of Clay,  
> Trodden with the cattle's feet;  
> But a Pebble of the brook,  
> Warbled out these metres meet:
> 
> Love seeketh only self to please,  
> To bind another to Its delight,  
> Joys in another's loss of ease,  
> And builds a Hell in Heaven's despite.
> 
>  **The Tyger**  
>  Tyger! Tyger! burning bright  
> In the forests of the night,  
> What immortal hand or eye  
> Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
> 
> In what distant deeps or skies  
> Burnt the fire of thine eyes?  
> On what wings dare he aspire?  
> What the hand dare seize the fire?
> 
> And what shoulder, & what art.  
> Could twist the sinews of thy heart?  
> And when thy heart began to beat,  
> What dread hand? & what dread feet?
> 
> What the hammer? what the chain?  
> In what furnace was thy brain?  
> What the anvil? what dread grasp  
> Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
> 
> When the stars threw down their spears,  
> And watered heaven with their tears,  
> Did he smile his work to see?  
> Did he who made the Lamb make thee?
> 
> Tyger! Tyger! burning bright  
> In the forests of the night,  
> What immortal hand or eye  
> Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
> 
>  **A Poison Tree**  
>  I was angry with my friend:  
> I told my wrath, my wrath did end.  
> I was angry with my foe:  
> I told it not, my wrath did grow.
> 
> And I watered it in fears,  
> Night and morning with my tears;  
> And I sunned it with smiles,  
> And with soft deceitful wiles.
> 
> And it grew both day and night  
> Till it bore an apple bright;  
> And my foe beheld it shine,  
> And he knew that it was mine,
> 
> And into my garden stole  
> When the night had veiled the pole:  
> In the morning glad I see  
> My foe outstretched beneath the tree.


	10. Solo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- Author's Note: Sorry it took me so long to get this chapter up, RL has been hectic. Thank you all for reading, kudos'ing, and commenting. Each notice makes me happy!
> 
> Thank you also to xyber116 for beta'ing this chapter.
> 
> Some dialogue taken from 1.15, written by David Rambo.
> 
> Trigger warnings: Allusions to Non-con, Aftermath of Torture
> 
> I don't own the characters or Revolution; I'm just playing with them for a bit for fun, not profit.

**Seven-and-a-half years after The Blackout**

When Miles learnt what had happened to Rachel during his 3-week absence from Philly, he was pissed. He felt a touch of remorse having nearly killed a corporal to find out her location. But when he opened the broom-closet door and saw an emaciated, withered Rachel and smelled the miasma of a sweet-sour chemically stench on top of the stink of unwashed flesh, everything but an implacable wrath disappeared.

Rachel just stared owlishly at Miles' oil lamp, her lips soundlessly muttering something; she didn't do anything, didn't tense, didn't recognize him. Miles was freaked out by this lethargic and uncharacteristic behavior. How could Bass, no not Bass, how could  _President Monroe_  do this to Rachel, to Ben's wife, to  _his_  family?

Miles knelt down and put one arm underneath Rachel's bent knees. This triggered some feeble thrashing, which heightened Miles concern. He murmured sweet nothings until her flailing stopped and wrapped his other arm around her back and lifted her out of the closet.

Miles could feel her ribs through their clothes and knew she felt lighter than his 90-pound kit. He didn't even want to guess how much she weighted before – women have this sixth sense and know if you're judging their weight – but it certainly was more than this.

As Miles carried Rachel to his room he flagged down two privates. He told one to fetch some chicken stock – not broth – stock, from the kitchen. He told the other to get President Monroe's fucking ass to his room ASAP.

Miles kicked the door to his room open and settled Rachel on top of the quilt on his large bed. She began squirming again and curled her knees up tight to her chin in a protective ball. Miles knew he and Bass would need to have a little talk…

Miles impatiently waited for the chicken stock and paced between the open door and the bed. He switched between needing to watch Rachel and being furious by seeing such a normally proud, smart, tenacious woman being reduced to _that_.

The private returned with a large bowl of stock. Miles snatched it out of the woman's hands and placed it on his bedside table. He ordered the private to fetch a cloth he had on his wash station, while he dragged his chair over to the bed. Miles sat down and scooped up a spoonful of stock. He went to put it in Rachel's mouth but her head was tucked into her knees.

"Open up," he ordered, attempting to sound unthreatening but failing. Licking his lips in frustration, he put the spoon and bowl down and went to manhandle her into a suitable position.

The private placed the cloth beside the bowl and said, "Let me."

She stroked Rachel's hair, drawing out her face, and then timidly asked Miles, "Please sir, if you will sir, lightly moisten her lips, sir?"

Miles dribbled a bit of stock onto Rachel's lips. Instinctively, she licked her lips. Success! Rachel opened her mouth like a baby bird, and he began carefully spooning the stock in to it.

The private began to back away and stood by the door waiting to be dismissed. Miles didn't have time for such niceties. His only focus was feeding Rachel.

A bit later, Miles heard the private snap to attention and acknowledge Bass's arrival; Bass dismissed her. Miles studiously continued feeding Rachel.

"You rang?" quipped Bass. Miles spooned a few more spoonfuls of stock into Rachel's waiting mouth, just to piss off Bass, before placing the bowl on his bedside table, and slowly turning around in his chair.

"Bass, how could you do this to Rachel? She's Ben's wife. She's part of my family. We agreed that there would be limits. Especially after…"

Bass pacing, interrupted, "Do you think I wanted this? I thought she'd crack in three days tops. And I never  _touched_  her."

Miles snorted at his emphasis, "No,  _you_  might not have touched her but you certainly hurt her."

Bass threw his hands into the air and continued, "Anyways,  _you_  turned her over to  _me_. Said you didn't want to deal with her anymore, but didn't trust anyone else to do it right."

Miles retorted, "I don't know if she knows anything, but the one thing I do know is, she is willing to die. She isn't afraid of dying. This isn't going to work – you can't torture someone who isn't afraid of death. Just give it up."

Miles paused, then continued softer, "Bass, you can't turn the lights back on, and you can't get Rachel to talk. Just let her go man. Let her go." The last statement came out more pleadingly than Miles had intended.

Bass walked over to Miles and said wonderingly, "You care about her. No. You love her.  _Man_. I know about how you were her rebound from Ben – odd that one – and about the night after you found me in the graveyard, about to do something stupid. But you  _love_  her."

Miles shook his head, categorically denying Bass' statement. He said, "No, I don't, she's Ben's wife!"

Bass chuckled and patted Miles on the shoulder, "You can't change what the heart feels. You just can't. When she's recovered, you'll ask her once more about why the power went out?"

Miles snorted, brushing Bass's hand away, "You cannot possibly believe that I'll play good cop to your bad cop? The damage has already been done. Get out of here before I toss you out head first."

Bass just chuckled in an infuriating manner, and left Miles to return to feeding Rachel.

* * *

**Fifteen years after The Blackout**

Rachel was trying to pacify Aaron. He had thought he had seen his wife. The wife he had talked about incessantly with Ben whenever they were in their cups. The wife he had walked out on, 'for her own good.'  _Ugh!_ That sentiment had annoyed her a decade ago when she first found out, and it infuriated her now.

Aaron stopped paying attention to her and was staring into a tavern. He sleepwalked to the entrance and said, "Priscilla."

The Asian woman turned around and after a few moments of stunned silence she said, "Oh… Aaron. Hi."

Rachel could tell this wasn't exactly the response he'd been imagining these past few hours, while frantically searching for her. Aaron replied, "Hi. So… just hi."

Rachel turned away, a small smile on her face at the awkwardness of this reunion.  _Still, it could be worse._

Rachel studied the smoke-stains on the tavern wall intently, trying to and failing at not hearing Aaron and Priscilla's conversation.

"What are you doing here?" Asked Aaron.

Priscilla replied, "I could ask you the same." There was an overly loud thud and Rachel turned her head. The man sitting close beside Priscilla had set his glass down with a touch too much force. _Odd._

Priscilla continued, "We, ah, we wanted a change of scenery, so we came out here."

This blatant lie caught Rachel's interest, especially coupled with the man's behavior.

"We?" obliviously asked Aaron.

Priscilla turned slightly and said, "Steve, this is Aaron. Aaron's ah, an old friend."

Rachel glanced at Aaron. He seemed hurt by the introduction.

Priscilla continued, "Steve's my husband."

Rachel could tell Aaron would need a minute to collect himself, and she was intrigued by the by-play between Priscilla and Steve. If she had to bet, she'd bet that Steve was a jealous man, and probably a wife-beater too.

"Hi, uh, I'm Rachel. Priscilla. A friend of Aaron's, he's told me a lot about you." She tried to watch Steve, but he didn't really react to her getting close to Priscilla or talking about her past acquaintance with another man.  _Maybe_  he wasn't a wife-beater.

Priscilla forced a smile and then said, "Aaron, it was good seeing you."

Rachel could see desperation in her eyes.

Aaron stuttered out, "Could, could, could we, we just go talk somewhere?"

Priscilla ignored the request and verbally stabbed Aaron in the gut. She only had to say, "Take care of yourself."

Rachel stepped in again. Priscilla dreadfully desired Aaron out of here. Rachel said, "We should go." She led a stunned Aaron away by the arm.

After several steps he shook her off and said, "Will you stop?"

Rachel looked up into his eyes, trying to convey the necessity of leaving non-verbally. It didn't work. She said slowly and firmly, like talking to a toddler, a slow toddler at that, "She's asking you to go. Let's go."

She felt pity for Aaron. He clearly still loved this woman and he felt like she was brushing him off. She felt more pity for Priscilla. She was trapped in a marriage with a man she was afraid of, and she was desperate to get Aaron out of the way. Rachel knew she wouldn't share these thoughts with Aaron, for one she wasn't sure, two Aaron would probably mount up and get injured or killed – and Jane's notebook contained hints that Aaron would be needed once she reached The Tower – and three they really didn't need an extra mouth to feed as they approached the arid center of the Plains Nations.

Later that night, Aaron was still moping about Priscilla, and Rachel needed to turn his one-track mind away from envisioning a 'happily ever after'. Rachel walked up to Aaron, sitting by the fire, she said, "Look. We should leave. Where we're going, she's better off without you."

Aaron took a swig from his hip flask and tartly retorted, "You're right, she's better off with that dick."

Rachel sighed and, using her own experience, said, "I get it. You think that you'll apologize and everything will be okay. It doesn't work like that."  _Once you've been hurt so profoundly by someone you care for, it takes a lot of work to start to rebuild that trust._  Rachel fingered her wedding ring. She thought back to her and Ben, and then later Miles and her. Yep, it takes a lot of work to rebuild that kind of trust.

Aaron turned to her and said; "You don't know her like I do. Something wasn't right. And I'm just… I'm not leaving her again."

Rachel watched Aaron walk away, full of determination. He was right about something probably being wrong, but it wasn't likely to be something he could fix. Battered women have all of these unhealthy mental constructs, not unlike Stockholm syndrome. Rachel considered herself a bit of an expert on Stockholm syndrome after spending years trying to avoid it.

Rachel shook her head and used her mantra to focus her mind on her goal – seeing Bass dead.

… _In the morning glad I see / My foe outstretched beneath the tree._  


 


	11. Blowback

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- Author's Note: Thank you all for reading and kudos'ing. Each notice makes me happy!
> 
> Thank you also to xyber116 for beta'ing this chapter.
> 
> Some dialogue taken from 1.16, written by Melissa Glenn.
> 
> Trigger warnings: Allusions to Non-con, POV PTSD, Aftermath of Torture
> 
> I don't own the characters or Revolution; I'm just playing with them for a bit for fun, not profit.

**Seven-and-a-half years after The Blackout**

Rachel woke up to a warm, heavy mass on top of her. She flailed her arms and legs. At least she tried to. They were immobile. Rachel grunted and tried to get her eyes to open. They were crusted closed with sleep.

"Ggggnugh" she grunted, struggling to get her body to obey commands. She forced her eyes open and saw a white plaster wall. She looked down and saw a thick quilt on top of her. The quilt was tucked around her firmly – swaddling her like a baby.

As Rachel's befogged mind tried to understand how this had come to pass, Miles' face appeared in her field of vision. She flinched in startlement. Miles made soothing sounds – like she was a spooked horse or something – and the face retreated a bit.

Rachel studied the haggard face. There were dark bags under his eyes and his beard was at least three days old. His hair was teased into a wave – likely from sleeping on it.

Rachel blinked and tried to free her arms. She couldn't, she was just too weak.

Rachel looked back at Miles, who seemed to be studying her intently. Rachel tried wetting her mouth and eventually rasped out, "Why am I swaddled like baby?"

Miles smiled at her, and dragged a chair to sit in her field of vision. He said, "I didn't want you to get cold."

Rachel's mind refused to process that statement. The last time she'd seen him months ago, he'd slapped her silly, and turned her over to Bass; now, he tucked her in so she wouldn't catch a chill?

Rachel struggled to free her arms in an attempted to avoid thinking about that, and the third time was the charm. She lifted her right arm out from beneath the covers and was shocked at how emaciated it was. She could see the interplay of various muscle groups beneath her skin.

Miles interrupted her reflection, and asked, "Do you want some stock?"

Rachel nodded and Miles disappeared from her vision. She could hear him tell someone to get some more chicken stock, and a faint feminine voice responded with a 'yes sir'.

When Miles returned, Rachel asked, "How?"

Miles licked his lips and said; "Bass starved you for 18 days."

Rachel had the strength to nod her head; she knew that – not the exact number of days, but the rest. Rachel tried again, "How?"

Miles said, "I've had you for 5 days. The doc says it'll be a while before your muscles can recover from cannibalizing themselves."

Rachel tried a third time, this time managing to say, "How come?"

Miles stared down, his deep brown eyes cloudy with some unnamable emotion, and said, "You're part of my family. You're Ben's wife, I shouldn't have trusted Bass to stay within the limits – not with you. I'm sorry."

Rachel's brain refused to take the derivative of e^x and get e^x, but soon she was saved from the mental turmoil by the arrival of a young private with a bowl of stock. Miles propped Rachel up onto some pillows and began spoon-feeding her. Rachel's focus was single-minded and intense, but once her initial hunger was satiated, she said, "I can feed myself."

Miles quirked an eyebrow at her, and infuriated, Rachel grabbed the spoon from him. Or at least that's what her central nervous system told her arm to do. Her arm lifted a few inches off of the quilt. A wave of shame crashed into her, leaving her face red and her eyes teary.  _She was so weak, so revolting; why should she even try to recover?_

Miles must have caught some hint of her feelings because he murmured, "Hey, hey, hey. It's okay. It's okay. You'll get stronger. Soon. Just you wait."

He stroked her hair, and she leaned into the comforting motion. She slipped back into slumber with shocking ease, letting the calm of non-REM sleep claim her.

* * *

**Fifteen years after The Blackout**

Miles stared at the empty bottle of whiskey – the sound of the steam engine had stopped awhile back, when the bottle was half empty.

At least Charlie had the decency to lock him in with some alcohol. He snorted,  _yeah, real decent._  Everyone was rediscovering what a shit he was, and reacting as if they hadn't known. The past few months were the exception, not the rule. Nora should have known. Charlie could be excused for not truly knowing, but Nora should have known he was a selfish, dictatorial dick, and nothing but a dick.

Nora thought he had changed. He  _had_  tried to change. But you can't teach a 46-year-old dog new tricks. Nora had changed, had moved on from being who she had been, had found a new purpose, but she wasn't as fucking old as he was.

He knew she wanted him to fight her, to beg her to stay, but she was safer in another unit. Try as he might, he just couldn't protect her from himself, from the blowback of being in his life. It would be better if she just left.

Miles flashed back to Rachel, after all of the years he had kept her safe from Bass, he had ultimately failed. Like he had told Charlie, there was nothing Bass wouldn't do, no bond he wouldn't break, no line he wouldn't cross.  _Fuck._ Miles punched the bench. Bass had shown him Rachel's broken body, had hidden her away from him until the botched assassination attempt. Had kept her for years, doing God only knew what to her – Rachel still wouldn't tell him, so it couldn't have been all lollypops and teddy bears.

Bass had killed Ben. Had taken Danny. Had used Danny to get Rachel to talk. Had used Emma and their hometown as hostages. Had held a gun to Emma's head, using her as a human shield. He had killed Emma. Who knew what he'd do to Charlie or Nora if he got his hands on them.

Miles had to be this guy – The General – to protect them. He had driven them away, but if that was the price he had to play to keep them safe, then he'd pay it a thousand times over. Miles remembered the tailspin he had gone into after Rachel's 'death.' Only Nora had kept him from completely self-destructing. He didn't think he could keep it together if he had to see Charlie's or Nora's broken bodies. Or Rachel's again.

He was so tangled when it came to Rachel. He wanted her, wanted to protect her, but he had failed to protect her so many times that the person she needed protecting from the most was herself. He couldn't protect her from herself. He had tried that. He had tried to give her a reason to live. He knew he shouldn't have given in and kissed Rachel, but she looked so vulnerable, so broken, so desperate, he needed to show her that there was something worth living for. He told himself that it wasn't at all like before, that even if she hadn't welcomed the kiss at first, she had gotten into it, and that he wouldn't have done it if Ben were still alive.

He replayed Charlie's condemnation, 'Miles, you're holding a gun against his daughter's head, so you can blackmail him into making a disease. How is this any different than what Monroe did to my mom?' Well for one he wouldn't be keeping the guy and his family for years, or at least he  _hoped_  Foster wouldn't. But she deserved to know the awful man he was. It hurt him to be the one to show her, but she did deserve the truth.

It had skewered him in the heart to see that hurt look of betrayal in Charlie's  **eyes** , but her look of disgust as she locked him in froze him to the quick. He wanted to be a better man, to live up to her expectations, but they were too fucking high.

He would do almost anything for her, but not that… He listened, he heard – no, more felt – the bump of another ship coming along side the stalled steamboat. Was it another militia checkpoint? He heard the pitter-patter of little feet in great big combat boots clomping along the steel of the boat.

 _Fuck, Charlie needed him, and had locked him in here_. It would be her own damn fault if she got herself killed. How was he going to get to her in time?

 


	12. Salvation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- Author's Note: Thank you all for reading and commenting. Each notice makes me happy!
> 
> Thank you also to xyber116 for beta'ing this chapter.
> 
> Some dialogue taken from 1.18 – written by Paul Grellong & Oanh Ly.
> 
> Trigger warnings: Allusions to Non-con, Aftermath of Torture, POV PTSD, POV suicide attempt (you know the scene)
> 
> I don't own the characters or Revolution; I'm just playing with them for a bit for fun, not profit.

**Eight years after The Blackout**

Miles glanced up from his work. Rachel was lying on her belly, her feet in the air, her face in some sort of sciency book. Miles had taken to doing all the paperwork and report-reading he could in his old room. It wasn't to keep an eye on Rachel per say, he knew the guards he had posted would be sufficient to keep her in his suite. And there was nothing left in his rooms that she could use as a weapon – not even a metal spoon to sharpen into a shiv.

No, the real reason he came by was because he was worried about her. She had some of the ticks that some of his buddies from the Corps had – startling easier than a deer during hunting season, flashes of irritability, troughs of apathy, all symptoms of PTSD – and since she was already suicidal before what Bass let whatever actually happen happened, she was like as to be worse off now. Bass swore 'til be was blue in the face that  **that**  hadn't happened, but Miles still didn't trust him – hadn't forgiven him. There had to be a reason why she woke up screaming 4 out of 10 nights.

Miles looked over at the bouquet of wild flowers sitting on the other desk. He supposed she could try to break the thick ceramic vase for a sharp-edge, but it was part of a subtle campaign he was waging – trying to show her life's beauties, trying to get her to care once more. He had saved Bass – convinced him to live again; he could save Rachel as well. Of course whiskey, women, and the promise of eternal brotherhood wouldn't work on Rachel.  _Though, she might appreciate wine and a boy-toy, as a palate-cleanser_ , he thought wryly. Then he was revolted at himself for even thinking that. No, he had been trying flowers, nice food, frequent baths with special lavender-scented soap, and of course library access. He told himself he was doing it for Ben.

Miles knew it was working a bit. Some of the men guarding her – among his most trusted, posted in teams of two for the dual purpose of keeping them honest and being able to deal with Rachel better – heard her walking laps around the room or doing jumping jacks late at night. She must be trying to build up her strength. Miles  _knew_  she was sandbagging, pretending to be weaker than she was, when he was around. She must be plotting for an escape attempt. He'd let her go if he thought it would actually help, but it wouldn't. She was still weak, and even if she  _did_  know where Ben and the kids were, there was a lot of trouble between here and there, trouble she couldn't face. No, she'd be a lot safer here, with him. If they ever found Ben – he neglected to think about the fact that he had reassigned his best men away from that task – then she could be reunited with her family.

Miles looked back at Rachel – she was sleeping on her book, her legs canted to one side. Her cheek was pressed so firmly against the book, Miles was sure the ink was rubbing off.  _That's one way to learn_ , mentally quipped Miles. He was happy that she was comfortable enough with him to fall asleep with him in the room.

Miles turned back to his much neglected reports. Sometimes his mind wandered when Rachel was in the room, but it was nice being with her. He didn't have to be 'The General,' he could just be Miles.

An hour or so later, Miles heard an odd whimpering sound – like a puppy. He turned around and located the source; it was Rachel. She had tucked her knees up to her chin, and was shivering. Miles debated with himself whether or not to go to her. A man in a militia uniform probably would only worsen the flashback, and he still didn't know how much she hated him for That Night, but her pained whimpering drove him to her side. He stroked her cheek not stuck to the textbook, and stepped back when she woke with a start.

For a few heartbeats Miles watched Rachel's pupils shrink – focusing on him. He was sure he'd soon be royally chewed out by an embarrassed Rachel. Vulnerability made her testy. But instead, she threw herself into his arms. Astonished, he stroked her hair as she shook with tremors.

His heart melted, and he muttered softly, "You're mine, and I won't let anything else happen to you. I promise."

After a few treasured minutes, Rachel stopped shivering and tensed. Miles released her, and stood up from the bed. Rachel's face was red with embarrassment and she refused to meet his eye.

Miles knew the moment was over and walked back to his desk. After several minutes of silence Miles turned and sneaked a peak at Rachel, she was studying the book as if nothing had happened. He dared to ask, "Do you want to talk about it?"

Rachel exclaimed, "No!" and then softer, "No. Thank you."

The pair turned back to their work, one pretending that it hadn't happened; one dwelling on the feel of her soft too-slight form in his embrace.

* * *

**Fifteen years after The Blackout**

Rachel suppressed a yell of exultation. There, no more than 200 yards away, was Monroe. She had him in her sights. Literally. Her world focused on one thing. Just one thing: seeing Bass dead. Paying back that bastard for killing her baby boy. For killing Ben. For the multitude of things that he had done to her, had made her do. Rachel had had the whole journey to forge, re-forge, and hone her hatred, like one of those fancy Japanese swords one of her high school boyfriends used to have.

…  _In the morning glad I see / My foe outstretched beneath the tree…_

Aaron said sarcastically, "Oh, terrific. So how are we gonna get to that door now?"

Rachel suppressed a malicious grin, and pulled out Dr. Warren's notebook. She handed it over to Aaron saying, "Here. The override codes are inside. Take it."

Aaron asked, "Why?"

Rachel wanted to reply: well, you naïve fool, despite the fact that I already let you know my true intentions were to wipe out that piece of filth, and actually turning on the power was secondary, and anything else was tertiary, let me try to spell it out more clearly. But she didn't. Aaron was a _faithful_  naïve fool and didn't deserve that.

So, instead Rachel said, "Because tonight, I am going to go down there, and I am going to kill Monroe. And when I do, everyone is gonna run for his tent. Everyone. It'll be chaotic."

Aaron finally got the picture that nothing was more important to her than making Bass pay. Nothing. Especially not her own worthless life. He said, "Rachel, no…"

Rachel continued, "You won't have long…"

Aaron interrupted, "Absolutely not."

Rachel forged ahead, "… but you'll have a shot at the door. Get inside. Lock it behind you."

Aaron continued, as if he had more than a singlet oxygen's probability at changing her mind, "I said no. There's gotta be another way."

Rachel said with suppressed fury, "I came to kill Monroe. He is down there right now."

Aaron tried to change her mind with logic, how little he knew about what she had been through to think that  _that_  would work. Not when Monroe was in her sights. Not after what he had done to her. Not after what he had done to the people she cared about.

He said, "Even if you pull this off, they will kill you."

Rachel spared his delicate sensibilities; he was pretty dense for a genius. Then again, she had known PhDs from Before who forgot to turn off their Bunsen burners or forgot to zip their flies. She said, "How else are you gonna get inside? There is no other choice."

She continued, "I  _have_  to do this. You have to  _let_ me do this. For Danny. For  _Ben_. Get inside The Tower. Turn the power back on. It's up to you now." She turned on the waterworks, having reeled in the fool with just enough truth.

… _And I sunned it with smiles, / And with soft deceitful wiles…_

* * *

Rachel waited calmly in the sagebrush.  _Yes!_  She had caught one militiaman with her fire-trap. She pounced, strangling him with her belt. He tried to fight her, struggling to breathe. He flopped down to the dirt, and she rolled with him, never slacking in her grip. He tried elbowing her, and rolling over. She never released her hold. This particular mook may have never done anything wrong, but she had suffered at the hands of – and under the unseeing eyes of – many of his fellows. She felt not a shred of remorse when, once she gained enough leverage – her feet against his broad back – she snapped his neck.

Rachel panted with the exertion at 6,000 feet, and eventually examined her prey. He had an automatic rifle, his militia uniform – the item she had killed him for – and a grenade.  _Hot damn!_ The grenade gave Rachel an excellent idea. She had been planning on shooting Bass at point-blank range, to get the joy of seeing the fear in his eyes, the pleasure of hearing his last breath. But with this grenade she could do that, was well as sparing herself the possibility of a painful and protracted interrogation. No, a quick death beside Monroe; now, that would be the perfect ending to her tale.

… _And I watered it in fears, / Night and morning with my tears…_

* * *

Rachel strode into Monroe's camp, the perfect combination of arrogance and deference in her bearing. She confidently walked into the command tent, the grenade clutched firmly in her strong right hand.

 _There he was._ She softly said, "Hey."

…  _Night and morning with my tears;/…/ And with soft deceitful wiles…_

She needed to see that bastard's eyes before they both died. She pressed the safety lever down with her thumb and pulled the pin.

Some mook pulled his gun on her and said, "Don't move."

Rachel couldn't take her eyes off of Bass. Wanted to see him suffer, wanted to see his fear.

… _And I watered it in fears, /…/And I sunned it with smiles…_

The smug shit walked towards her and said, "Hello, Rachel."

Rachel replied, "Bass." Her hands tensing for a release.

Monroe tried to talk her down saying, "Rachel, let's not do anything rash here."

How  _dare_  he try to calm  _her_  down!? Rachel stared into his blue eyes and released the safety. Rachel looked forward to seeing his last look of panic, for the sweet release of death.

…  _In the morning glad I see / My foe outstretched beneath the tree…_

Rachel watched the mook with the gun tackle Monroe to the ground, while two other mooks tried to wrest the grenade from her hands. Rachel needed to see Bass die, and ignored the mooks on top of her.

Bass looked more angry than fearful, though with time astonishment entered those soul-less blue orbs.

 … _And my foe beheld it shine, / And he knew that it was mine…_  


The mook bent back her thumb, stealing her grenade, stealing away her salvation. He threw it and Rachel felt the earth rock with the explosion. Her ears rang. Rachel felt a wave of relief at her near miss. She told herself that that was merely the body's reaction;  _she_  was still focused on bringing about Bass' death by any means necessary.

…  _In the morning glad I see / My foe outstretched beneath the tree…_

Monroe stared at her like she was a crazy person and she wanted to cackle, to scream: 'You're damn right you fucker, and you are the one who made me this way!' But instead she rolled over, resigned to the hell to come. Resigned to live through whatever he threw at her, waiting for her next chance to eliminate the bastard.

…  _I was angry with my foe: / I told it not, my wrath did grow…_


	13. Détente

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note:Thank you to xyber116 for beta'ing this chapter.
> 
> Some dialogue taken from 1.19, written by David Rambo and Jim Barnes.
> 
> Trigger warnings: POV Stockholm syndrome/PTSD
> 
> I don't own the characters or Revolution; I'm just playing with them for a bit for fun, not profit.
> 
> Business trip is over, I should be able to return to my regular MWF posting schedule now.

**Eight years after The Blackout**

Rachel lay in Miles' bed, staring up at the cracks in the plaster celling trying to decide if it was time to start the day. She looked around at Miles' room. There were no personal mementos or knick-knacks to indicate the room was his,  _except for an old jar of refined tallow for his hair and herself_ , Rachel thought with a snort.

After Miles had taken her out of that Place, he had locked her in his room, and nursed her back to health. Rachel had exaggerated her weakness and kept on waiting for the other shoe to drop, for him to demand to know where Ben was. She kept on waiting for Bass to turn up and start questioning her again. She kept on waiting for Miles to move her back to a cell – maybe not the broom-closet – but a cell never the less. But these things never came to pass.

Rachel kept setting and extending deadlines for her escape attempt. At first the goal was to be able to walk to the chamber pot and back ten times in a row. But once she could do that, she felt that that wasn't enough to actually ensure a successful escape attempt. Then it became the ability to do fifty jumping jacks in a row before needing to take a breather. Her current goal was to do 100 push-ups. She could do 82, and was probably in the best shape of her life. She told herself that once she could do all 100 push-ups she really would escape. Would see her baby boy, her daughter, Ben.

Rachel shook her head; thinking about the future was never a fruitful exercise. Denied one well-trodden trail, her mind turned to the other.

Once Rachel was strong enough to sit up in bed for extended periods, Miles started coming over for dinner. Rachel had wondered what sick harem fantasy he was playing out in his head – keeping his brother's wife locked up in his inner sanctum. But at the time she was far too weak to argue and had played along, and she was ashamed to admit, it eventually became habit. He would come over, bearing dinner and they'd have a nice chat about inconsequentials – whether this late frost would hurt the apple crop, what Miles was up to and how Rachel was improving, and later what Rachel had been reading. At one of the first of these dinners, Rachel had tried to test the limits of her altered incarceration by asking for books. Miles had nodded levelly and the next afternoon a young militiaman built like a wide receiver showed up at her door with a stack of introductory physics textbooks.

Rachel still laughed about that to this day. At the time she was concerned that he suspected something, and this was just an opening volley, but now she knew he was just utterly clueless about the depth of science.  _Miles had really thought 100-level physics textbooks would interest her!_  Personally, Rachel had been expecting a stack of bodice-rippers, so she supposed this was a slight improvement. And it did turn out to be rather entertaining, just laying on Miles' bed comparing the different ways the textbook authors attempted to explain the laws of thermodynamics to the lowest common denominator.

Later, Rachel had asked if it might be possible for her to go to a library herself. The first trip Miles accompanied her, so she stuck to getting some 300-level biochemistry textbooks and a half-dozen collections of plays – mostly by Tom Stoppard. As time passed, she worked her way through various fields of science she hadn't had the time or inclination to explore, and expanded her literary horizons as well.

These trips became traditional Tuesday afternoon outings, and whenever Miles couldn't come he sent the wide receiver – who she would later learn was his protégé Alec Penner – and a few privates. On  _these_  trips Rachel was able to sneak off to other sections of the library and grab a few illicit books – she found a slim volume on Krav Maga and a surprisingly technical FBI pamphlet on hostage situations.

Rachel had taken to reading these books only when she knew Miles wasn't going to be in town. Lately, he had taken to randomly dropping by for brief visits or longer working visits during the day. At first, Rachel thought he wanted to make sure she wasn't plotting anything – even with two guards on his front door, two guards outside at the base of the windows, and numerous militiamen around the compound – but she had come to understand that he took some perverted pleasure from seeing her. It didn't matter if she was strictly polite, apathetically indifferent, or scathingly tart; he'd still kept coming back. She was careful never to cross certain lines, as much as she was uncomfortable with how comfortable her captivity was getting, it was a damn sight better than being back in Bass's hands.

Rachel shook her head; the past wasn't a 'happy place' either. She rolled out of bed and got dressed. She dragged the desk out of the doorway and lit an oil lamp. She pulled out an astrophysics book-beard and the Krav Maga volume.

She was permitted to bar the door with the flimsy IKEA desk while she slept when Miles was away – she physically couldn't sleep without that paper tiger – but there would be hell to pay if one of her guards saw the lamplight or heard noises coming from a barred room. Sure enough, before a minute had passed, one of the guardsmen checked that the door was unbarred and that she was reading – again. Once the brief check was over, she pulled the Krav Maga book out of the Astrophysics text. She would have at least thirty minutes before a private would come bearing breakfast.

The Krav Maga book was a treasure-trove – full of information about the best way to take someone down as fast as possible, vulnerable points, and even the psychology of physical combat. She had to restrain herself from laughing when the author talked about the need to evaluate yourself, to see if you had what it took to severely injure someone in an up-close and personal manner. After  **all**  of the deaths she had caused – many of them complete innocents – how would the fact that the blood would be literally on her hands change a damn thing? She was no squeamish Lady Macbeth to go mad at the guilt of one life!

* * *

**Fifteen years after The Blackout**

Miles followed Neville through the Ponderosa pine forest, guided by a small flickering light. Whoever trained these scouts did a piss-poor job of it. Fire blinds you and lets everyone else know exactly where you were.

Miles watched as Neville drew his gun on the huddled scout, and the scout dropped his light and tumbled into the duff.

Miles heard Neville ponderously pronounce, "Aaron Pittman."

Aaron's voice replied, "Oh my God. You?"

Miles felt fifty pounds lighter and ten years younger. If Aaron was here, Rachel had to be around here too.

Before Aaron could piss his pants, unaware that Neville was nominally on their side, Miles announced his presence with an unenthused, "Aaron." It would never do for him to think Miles was actually glad to see him.

Aaron breathlessly exclaimed, "Miles!" He looked rather confused.

Miles got to the heart of the matter as fast as possible, "He's with us now; it's a long story. Where is Rachel?"

Aaron swallowed heavily and looked guiltily around, avoiding Miles' eyes.

Miles' short patience was worn out and demanded in his sergeant voice, "Where is Rachel?"

Aaron picked himself up, out of the pine duff, and said, "Down there. In The Tower. With Monroe."

 _What the fuck?!_ Miles was about to interrogate him further when Neville said, "Let's move this happy little reunion back to the others."

Miles nodded his agreement and tailed the other two as they walked through the underbrush. He wondered what in the world Rachel was doing in The Tower with  _Bass_. He could wait the 60 seconds until they met up with Charlie, Nora, and Jason. Patience was a virtue, right?

Charlie was quietly overjoyed to see Aaron again, and Miles begrudgingly let them take the 30 seconds they needed to hug and reconnect, but when Aaron started quipping with Nora, he had had enough and interrupted, "Yeah, can we do this later? Tell them what you told me."

Aaron looked at Charlie sadly and said, "Rachel's in The Tower with Monroe."

Charlie asked the question Miles had wanted to ask, "How did that happen?"

Aaron replied, "She… she went down to kill him. To blow herself up."

Miles was pissed, "And you just let her."

Aaron retorted "Can you stop Rachel from doing anything? 'Cause I can't."

Miles conceded that he had a point. Rachel was a strong-willed woman. Aaron probably wouldn't be able to convince Rachel it was time for a rest-break let alone stop her from avenging Danny's death. In the background, he heard Neville and Aaron exchange what they would certainly call 'witty repartee,' but Miles was focused on Aaron's statement:  _she went down to kill him, to blow herself up._

Where had she gotten that crazy idea? He knew she didn't think she'd make it back from The Tower, he knew she was suicidal and wanted to revenge Danny's death, but why with the blowing-herself-up-ness? He thought he might have gotten through to her that night in the Rebel base, before he gave her his spare pistol. He had tried to give her a reason to live. It clearly hadn't worked.

The boys moved on to discussing strategies of getting down to The Tower, and Miles shook himself. He needed to fix his mind to the now, and get to The Tower, get to Rachel;  _then_  he could think about this sort of shit.


	14. The Telling

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: Thank you all for reading, commenting, and kudos'ing.
> 
> Thank you also to xyber116 for beta'ing this chapter.
> 
> Some dialogue taken from 1.19, written by David Rambo and Jim Barnes.
> 
> Trigger warnings: POV Stockholm syndrome/PTSD, Rated E for POV Rachel-craziness
> 
> I don't own the characters or Revolution; I'm just playing with them for a bit for fun, not profit.

**Eight years after The Blackout**

Miles was staring at the board, trying to figure out the best play. He was sitting on the fireplace rug in his old suite in front of a backgammon board. Rachel was lying on her belly, her bare feet idly kicking in the air. Miles had started coming over with boardgames a few months ago. He had remembered that Ben and Rachel used to play some massive war boardgame –Warhammer or Risk, something like that. He had thought it was odd Ben had been so against him enlisting, but enjoyed playing war games.

Miles couldn't find such an elaborate game, but Jeremy did have a chessboard, and he had a deck of cards from Before. The games were the latest idea in his personal war against Rachel's depression. He had tried chess, she creamed him, checkers, too boring, poker, he creamed her. Then he had found an old backgammon board in a market. Miles had had to teach her, but she learned quickly, and they were now well matched.

Rachel asked, "Why are you doing this?"

Miles looked back down at the board. He had used his roll of a 6 and a 1 to split his rear-guard. One man made it to the safety of a troop, but his lone man was now vulnerable to attack. But he really didn't see a better course of action, and sometimes you just had to leave the rear-guard exposed.

He looked up at her. Rachel continued, "I mean this…" she gestured at his room, the fire, and the remains of a steak-and-potatoes dinner.

Miles licked his lips; he just wanted the best for Rachel. To keep her safe, to to to restore her to that spunky woman he once knew. He also knew that he'd best not say any of these things. Rachel might lash out and say something they both would regret – residuals of her PTSD.

Miles instead said, "I just want to take care of you."

Rachel retorted, "If you care so much about me, why don't you just let me go?"

Miles sighed. Bass wanted him to let her go too. Bass had asked him why he had kept her around if she didn't know anything, if he refused to admit he had any feelings for her. Bass couldn't understand that Rachel was the only person who didn't see him as 'The General.' Hell  _even_ Bass expected him to be 'The General,' made demands on him. But being  _him_  wasn't a walk in the park, and Miles liked the dinners with Rachel where he could forget that he was  _him_  for a bit.

Miles replied evenly, "Let's say I did let you go, where would you go? What would you do? It's not like you could go home again."

Rachel bit her lip and glanced down briefly. Miles ignored her reaction. If he noticed her reaction, that would mean he would have to acknowledge that Rachel  _did_ know how to find Ben. If that were the case, he'd have to question her again. Bass still had an unholy fixation on turning the lights back on.

Miles told himself that the reaction was only her missing her kids. Miles said, "Your kids are fine. They have Ben to look out for them, and Charlotte has got to be what, thirteen, fourteen? They're fine."

Rachel turned a sickly, white color, and Miles cursed himself for bringing up her kids. He tried to change the subject by saying, "Your turn," and gestured at the board with his chin.

Rachel stood up and excused herself. Miles watched her walk to the bathroom and shut the door beside her. He heard wracking sobs and then a retching sound. Miles was torn, he wanted to help her, but then again it was her own fault. They were having a fine evening until she started questioning his intentions. He gathered up the pieces and packed away the game. They were done for the night.

* * *

**Fifteen years after The Blackout**

With men exploding left and right around her, Rachel did the only sensible thing, she grabbed a boot-knife off of a dead man and dove for the secure bunker she knew was located just off the hallway near the elevator on Levels 9 through 11.

While ducking around exploding bodies, she jimmied her cuffs loose with the boot-knife. Her hands free, she reached the bunker door and its keypad. She knew the bunker on Level 9's code was the first 6 digits of pi, and the bunker on Level 10's code was the first 6 digits of e. Logically, the bunker on Level 11's code should be either the first 6 digits of phi (the golden ratio) or the first 6 digits of the square root of 2. She went with her gut and typed 161803. The bunker door unlocked and she shoved the heavy door inwards. Before she could swing it closed and lock it, a gloved hand appeared in the crack.  _Damn._

Bass' voice shouted over the high pitched whirring of the coil guns – Rachel knew about the coil-guns, they were overly expensive, messy, and exactly the sort of toy the DOD boys had liked to play with Before –  _double damn_.

Bass shouted, "Let me in, Rachel!"

Rachel fought to release his hand and close the door. She shouted, "No."

Bass shouted again, this time more desperate, "Let me in!" He shoved the door open. As soon as Rachel felt her feet give, she released the door and ran to the long part of the bunker's L shaped design. She freed herself of the rest of her cuffs and spotted a pair of scissors on the desk. She palmed them, she knew the little boot-knife wouldn't be enough to seriously injure, let alone kill, Bass.

…  _In the morning glad I see / My foe outstretched beneath the tree…_  


Her mind red with fury, with hope for finally killing the bastard who killed her son, she dove at him like a high-tension spring just released from a non-equilibrium position. She hoped to drive the scissors between his ribs, into his lung, but her move was too telegraphed. Rachel only had fierce hatred and book-learning on her side. He had testosterone, training, and experience on his.

Rachel was embarrassed at how quickly he had shoved her against the desk. He slammed her wrist against the side and her damn autonomic reflexes released the scissors. He had disarmed her. She had failed again.

Bass had both of her hands pined under his, his wiry form pressed up against her legs so she couldn't kick him, and he shouted down at her, "Just stop it for a second!"

Rachel laid on the desk panting, over-exaggerating her need for oxygen – a bit – half of her mind was planning her next move, the other half fixated on her consistent failure. She always failed – failed at being a mother, failed at being a hostage, failed at killing this man.

Bass licked his lips and exclaimed, "What the hell just happened? Who are they?"

Rachel continued to try to catch her breath. The Tower was at approximately 6,000 feet or something, and damn was the partial pressure of oxygen low. To distract herself from the feel of Bass' body on top of hers, and his questions, Rachel thought of the ways her body was adjusting to the altitude. She was clearly breathing faster, and her blood would likely have more bicarbonate and DPG to adjust hemoglobin's affinity for oxygen. She had spent a week several years ago reading the literature on hemoglobin. It was insane how much time the early biophysicists had spent studying that one protein.

She returned to the present, Bass looming down on her, shouting, "Who are they?" Rachel was silent, running her mantra through her head.

Bass repeated, "Who are they!"

… _I was angry with my foe:/ I told it not, my wrath did grow…_  


Bass eventually gave up on getting Rachel to talk, and carefully released her.

He told her, "No funny business or you'll regret it."

Then he set about searching the room for supplies. Rachel was resolutely silent and watched the TV monitors as he rummaged. She doubted he could find anything of use and she still had the boot-knife. She was patient. She could wait to make her move. They both knew exactly how long she could go without sleep, or food, and she doubted his untested limits could rival hers. She was patient.  _He_  had made her that way.

… _And it grew both day and night / Till it bore an apple bright;…_  


Eventually Bass grew frustrated. Rachel knew what happened when Bass got frustrated.

Bass asked her, "So you're telling me you have no idea who these people are?"

Rachel wanted to reply:  _why do you think I'm watching these monitors you dumb-fuck, to see if I could catch a glimpse of them and know. Not that I'd tell you who they were once I figured it out._  But she didn't. Randall might not think highly of her self-preservation instinct, but she knew she wouldn't do anything but piss off Bass and get a black eye for her trouble. She had lived on this knife's-edge for too long. Instead she simply said, "No."

Bass continued to probe, "Are they with Randall?"

Rachel replied honestly, "I don't know. With any luck, Randall is dead." How stupid was he to lead Bass to The Tower, to Level 12? Randall thought he was so smooth, but he couldn't control Bass. Not Bass. Rachel turned her attention to Monroe, wondering if there was another ploy she could use besides the waiting game.

…  _In the morning glad I see / My foe outstretched beneath the tree._  


Bass continued rummaging sighed and asked, "How do we get out?"

Rachel smoothly lied, "I don't know." She shrugged her shoulders slightly.

Bass was clearly glad that she was finally talking to him again, and asked, "Are there any weapons around here?'

Rachel smiled slightly at his peevishness, "I don't know."

Bass, annoyed at her slight insolence, slammed the drawer, and shouted, "Really? You don't know? You knew to run straight to this – this, uh, this bunker, whatever, but you don't know anything?"

… _And I sunned it with smiles, / And with soft deceitful wiles…_  


Rachel stood silent – in control. She knew not to annoy him further at this point, but also knew silence made Bass uncomfortable. Silence was  _her_  close companion these past eight years, but Bass' not so much.

Bass continued, slightly calmer, "Rachel, your only chance, and our only chance, is if we help each other."

Rachel was not taken in by his diplomatic gesturing; she stood silent, observing Bass.

Calmly, she said, "Why would I want that? I want  _you_  to  _die_."

…  _In the morning glad I see / My foe outstretched beneath the tree._  


Bass stupidly asked, "So much that you want to die too?"

Rachel was still calm; she was in control of this conversation now, as long as he didn't act too capriciously, "I haven't made that clear?"

Bass studied her face closely. She was still in control.

Bass said, "You're lying."

Rachel unconsciously clenched her jaw. It never boded well, when Bass said  **that**.

Bass, however, turned the conversation in an unexpected direction, he said, "Now trust me, Rachel. I know something about this."

Rachel was a bit curious. Where was Bass going with this? Rachel cocked her head very slightly, her eyes ever-fixèd upon Bass'.

Bass continued, "You know, every so often some poor sap… jumps from a bridge, trying to off himself, but he survives."

Rachel was still in control of the conversation, she told herself. She resolutely watched Bass approach closer. Her hands were in her pockets, the right one grasping the boot-knife in as inconspicuous a manner as possible. She wasn't about to start something right now, not with Bass awake and aware, but if he got too close…

… _And my foe beheld it shine, / And he knew that it was mine…_  


Bass continued, "And when you talk to them after… to a man, they all say the same thing – the moment they jumped, they regretted it, which means the successful ones do too. The moment they open their wrist, kick loose that chair, the last thought that goes through their mind is, 'I made a mistake.'

Rachel remembered her body's reaction to the near-miss, the flood of endorphins,  _she_  had welcomed death if it had meant  _his_  too, but the body had its own priorities.

Bass was too close. Rachel stared into his soul-less blue eyes and saw a glimmer of a soul.

Bass continued, "So you are telling me, back in the tent with that grenade, you weren't thinking the exact same thing?"

Rachel didn't respond. She wanted his death; her body could go fuck itself. Bass continued a bit peevish, "So how about we actually get out of here alive?  _Then_  you can get back to trying to kill me."

Rachel watched him go over to the cabinet she had supposed was a weapons cabinet, he opened it and revealed four guns. Why would they need so many? Wouldn't have made sense to stash some food in the bunker as well? DOD boys and their toys.

Bass rattled at the Plexiglas divider like some ape-man, and Rachel knew she would have to decide on a course of action. Now that he saw the toys, he wouldn't stop until he had one of his very own.

Bass asked her, "You know how to open this?"

Rachel gave him the expected response, "I don't."

Bass slammed his hand against the Plexiglas.

… _And I watered it in fears, / Night and morning with my tears…_  


Rachel returned to watching the monitors. Bass started whaling on the Plexiglas with Cheney's putter – or at least that's who she thought would use this bunker. The Tower was close enough to his house in Wyoming that he could have gotten here in a relatively short chopper ride.

Rachel got some level of visceral enjoyment at seeing Bass so stymied, though she knew he'd start acting out soon.

Eventually, Bass turned to her and asked, "What is this place, anyway?"

Rachel didn't see any strategic value in withholding this information, and it might de-escalate the situation with Bass a bit, so she replied, "V.P. Bunker. Cheney used it. It was his 'undisclosed location.'"

Bass, clearly expecting another 'I don't know,' asked "Are you serious?"

Rachel just quirked her eyebrow at him, letting him decide whether or not she was telling the truth. She hoped he wouldn't take it as insolence. Nothing escalated a situation with Bass quite as fast as perceived insolence.

Bass whaled on the Plexiglas once more before tossing the deformed putter aside, he said, "You know what I think? I think you know how to open this door."

Rachel blinked and him, and after a few moments of thought, decided to tell the truth, "Yeah, you're right. I do. You're right about all of it. I don't want to die. I want to see my daughter again."

… _And I sunned it with smiles, / And with soft deceitful wiles…_  


Bass, looking a bit shocked at her honesty, asked, "So why don't you help me?"

Rachel retorted, "Because you killed Danny." She thought about her precious baby boy. His development so stunted by his premature birth, by the lack of oxygen his developing brain received, all fixed by the capsule. By Dr. Warren's nanite controller.

Rachel continued, "You – you murdered  _my_   _son_."

Bass tried to pass the buck, as per usual, "Rachel, I wasn't even there."

Rachel snapped, "Don't. You. Dare. Say that. To me! You have always made excuses, but…" Rachel thought about all of his "excuses" for his behavior. He had done it to protect Miles from her influence. That is was for the good of the Republic. That  _she_  had made him do it.

She had had enough, "You – not about this.  **Not this**."

Rachel could see the barest glimmer of guilt in his eye. He walked away. She had reasserted her control over the conversation; it had hurt almost as bad as one of Strausser's sessions to air so much truth, but the conversation was hers.

…  _Night and morning with my tears;/…/ And with soft deceitful wiles…_  


Bass violently cleared the top of a cabinet.  _That was unexpected._

Bass said, "I didn't mean for any of this to happen." Rachel suppressed a small smirk, intentions meant so little to her. She and Ben had  _intended_  to save the world, look at how  _that_ turned out.

Bass continued "I don't know how this got so out of control."  _Yes, let us see the remainder of your blackened soul._

Then Bass dropped a bombshell on her, "I have a son."

Rachel was pretty damn sure the militia had enough condoms and Plan B squirreled away to prevent any sort of unplanned pregnancy. She didn't think he had had deep enough feelings for any of his 'girls' for it to be intentional.

She waited for him to clarify; he didn't, so she asked, "What?"

Bass continued, "I don't know where he is. I've been looking for him."

Rachel got the picture now, it had been accidental, and the woman had hidden the child from 'The President.'  _Smart move, who knew how he'd warp a child._

… _And what shoulder, & what art./ Could twist the sinews of thy heart?..._  


Bass continued, "But it makes you wonder… if he saw me… if he knew all the things that I've done… What would he think of me?"

Looking at Bass' guilt was like looking into a mirror. She and Ben had kept so many secrets from Charlie and Danny for this very reason, she didn't want them to know the things she had done, the blood of  _billions_  on her hands.

… _Every man is a piece of the continent,/ A part of the main…_  


Bass continued, his thoughts mirroring her own, "You're right, Rachel. I'm sorry. No more… excuses. I know exactly how much blood is on my hands, Rachel."

Rachel felt a few tears roll down her cheeks; she was no longer in control of the conversation. The tens of thousands he had indirectly killed was a pond compared to her ocean. She had calculated it once, when she was in a particularly self-despising mood. The world population when Ford built his first Model T was maybe 1.6 billion. It was 1 billion during the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. The population at the time of Christopher Columbus was 0.45 billion. So, low-ball estimate, she, Ben, Randall, and the DOD boys had killed 5.4  _billion_  people, but she doubted that this 'brave new world' had the carrying capacity of the second Industrial Revolution, so it was more likely she had the blood of over 6,000,000,000 men, women, children, infants, all on her hands. Hundreds of thousands times the number Bass had.

… _The world is too much with us; late and soon,/…we lay waste our powers…_  


She shook herself, tried to tell herself what Ben had told her all those years ago: the only lives that mattered were the ones she could hold in her arms – Danny, Charlie, and Ben. Miles. Rachel tried to focus herself with her mantra. Bass had snuffed out two of the four lives that mattered. Had threatened the other two. He  **had**  to pay.

… _And I watered it in fears, /…/And I sunned it with smiles…_  


Rachel watched Bass futilely try to get the Plexiglas divider to open. It was entertaining, and she needed a bit of time to try to regain her rage.

Rachel glanced up at the monitors.  _Was that Aaron? How had he gotten past the militia?_ She was so startled that she forgot Bass, forgot to be subtle, she walked over to stare at them. There, behind Aaron, was her jolly, little girl all grown up and independent.

Rachel, without any control, muttered, "Oh my God. Charlie." Had her wish to see her daughter before she died actually come true? On another monitor was Miles followed faithfully by Nora.

… _Love seeketh not Itself to please,/ Nor for itself hath any care…_  


Rachel's world focused down onto those two monitors, to the small pixilated forms of the only two people who mattered.

Bass interrupted her, "Unlock the guns, Rachel."

This astounded Rachel. Why would she unlock the guns for him?

…  _In the morning glad I see / My foe outstretched beneath the tree._  


Bass continued, "No matter what I've done to you before,"  _And it was legion_. "You've got to believe me – I don't want to let another one of your kids get hurt. I will help you."

Rachel knew him, he would promise her cold fusion if it got him one of those fancy toys, "You're lying."

Bass continued, pressing her buttons, "Oh, you want to kill me so bad, you're gonna let Charlie die?"

…  _Moving of the earth brings harms and fears,/ Men reckon what it did and meant;…_  


Rachel looked back at the monitors, Charlie didn't look to be in any mortal danger; yes, she was sneaking around The Tower, filled with people armed with coil guns, separated from Miles, but it wasn't worth the risk.

Rachel, testing him on the terms, asked, "What about Miles?"

Bass looked into her eyes and said, "No promises."  _Now that, she believed._

Bass continued, "But I will save Charlie, I swear."

Rachel stared into his cold blue eyes, trying to see if he was just using her again, or if she could trust him for a picosecond.

Bass said, "Open it."

Then Rachel glanced back at the monitors; there was an explosion. Her stomach clenched, and she made a visceral reaction, a gut judgment, to trust Bass, just this once. She slid her fingers along the side of the weapons cabinet. She uncovered a keypad and tried 1618. It worked. The dented and divoted Plexiglas divider slid upwards. Rachel grabbed a coil gun and walked to the door, waiting for Bass to grab one of his own.

She unbarred the bunker and gestured for Bass to precede her. Her gut may inexplicably trust him with a gun, just this once, but  _she_  didn't trust him at her back.

… _In what distant deeps or skies/ Burnt the fire of thine eyes?_  


Bass glided along in front of her, his gun leading the way. The way his body moved sometimes reminded her of Miles.

She gave him clipped instructions to the position corresponding to Charlie's location. As they neared it, she heard a coil gun blast and the jangle of many metal things falling, clattering.

Rachel heard Aaron's voice shout her daughter's name. She paused in her tracks. She didn't think she could stand having to see the broken body of her other baby. Not after Danny. There was another coil gun blast.

Bass, in his eternal 'wit,' said, "Hello, Charlotte. A 'thank you' would be nice."

… _Joys in another's loss of ease,/ And builds a Hell in Heaven's despite…_  


Rachel hurried forward, desperate to see her daughter. Rachel walked around Bass, her latest deal with the devil over.

She helped Aaron free her little girl, and heard Bass' combat boots walk away. She tried not to think of Danny, or Ben, and very soon Miles. She had to focus on Charlie for the moment.

Once freed, her brave, iron-willed, and  _stupid_  daughter, marched off after Bass completely unarmed.

… _And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;/ It tolls for thee._  


Rachel grabbed her arm. No matter what the deal was, Bass could only take so much provocation.

"No." She commanded.

Charlie fought her restraint, demanding to know where Bass was going and why she had made her devil's bargain. Rachel didn't have time for this crap.

She dragged Charlie and Aaron along, towards an exit. She needed to get her daughter out of here, out of this kill-zone and away from The Tower. Then she could focus on killing Bass and restoring the power. In that order.

… _On what wings dare he aspire?/ What the hand dare seize the fire?..._  


Rachel was on point, leading them to the stairs, when, after turning a corner she was greeted by the sounds of coil guns charging and three men.

_Damn._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> John Donne's  
>  **No Man Is An Island**
> 
> No man is an island,  
> Entire of itself,  
> Every man is a piece of the continent,  
> A part of the main.  
> If a clod be washed away by the sea,  
> Europe is the less.  
> As well as if a promontory were.  
> As well as if a manor of thy friend's  
> Or of thine own were:  
> Any man's death diminishes me,  
> Because I am involved in mankind,  
> And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;  
> It tolls for thee.
> 
> John Donne's  
>  **A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning**
> 
> As virtuous men pass mildly away,  
> And whisper to their souls to go,  
> Whilst some of their sad friends do say,  
> "The breath goes now," and some say, "No,"
> 
> So let us melt, and make no noise,  
> No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move;  
> 'Twere profanation of our joys  
> To tell the laity our love.
> 
> Moving of the earth brings harms and fears,  
> Men reckon what it did and meant;  
> But trepidation of the spheres,  
> Though greater far, is innocent.
> 
> Dull sublunary lovers' love  
> (Whose soul is sense) cannot admit  
> Absence, because it doth remove  
> Those things which elemented it.
> 
> But we, by a love so much refined  
> That our selves know not what it is,  
> Inter-assured of the mind,  
> Care less, eyes, lips, and hands to miss.
> 
> Our two souls therefore, which are one,  
> Though I must go, endure not yet  
> A breach, but an expansion.  
> Like gold to airy thinness beat.
> 
> If they be two, they are two so  
> As stiff twin compasses are two:  
> Thy soul, the fixed foot, makes no show  
> To move, but doth, if the other do;
> 
> And though it in the center sit,  
> Yet when the other far doth roam,  
> It leans, and hearkens after it,  
> And grows erect, as that comes home.
> 
> Such wilt thou be to me, who must,  
> Like the other foot, obliquely run;  
> Thy firmness makes my circle just,  
> And makes me end where I begun.
> 
> William Wordsworth's  
>  **The World Is Too Much with Us**
> 
> The world is too much with us; late and soon,  
> Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;  
> Little we see in Nature that is ours;  
> We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!  
> This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon,  
> The winds that will be howling at all hours,  
> And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers,  
> For this, for everything, we are out of tune;  
> It moves us not. -Great God! I'd rather be  
> A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;  
> So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,  
> Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;  
> Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;  
> Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.


	15. Chapter 15: A Broken Heart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: Thank you all for reading and commenting. Each notice makes me a happy camper!
> 
> Thank you also to xyber116 for beta'ing this chapter.
> 
> Some dialogue taken from 1.20, written by Eric Kripke & Paul Grellong.
> 
> Trigger warnings: POV Stockholm syndrome/PTSD, canonical major character death, allusions to self-harm
> 
> I don't own the characters or Revolution – if I did Nora wouldn't have died, and the science would be better. I'm just playing with them for a bit for fun, not profit.

**Eight years after The Blackout**

Rachel was lying in front of the fireplace, playing a game with Miles. She was having a good time, not thinking about anything but how pleasant it was. Then she heard one of her guards cough. She tensed, and the reality of her existence crashed down upon her.

She was locked in the bedroom of a temperamental man, dependent solely on him for protection from a capricious and violent man. She had armed guards on her door and a good day was one where she had the freedom to walk – escorted – three blocks to a library and chose her own books. But then again, she had a soft bed, three meals a day, water for baths, and the sometimes remarkably genial company of Miles.

The FBI pamphlet on hostage situations warned about Stockholm syndrome. The syndrome was the paradoxical phenomenon where a hostage and their captor develop a sympathetic bond, which happened in 27% of prolonged hostage situations. The pamphlet went on to say that it happened more frequently during long, intense incidents when the hostage can't escape, is dependent on the captor for basic necessities, is isolated from any other people, the captor has the capability to kill the hostage, and the captor exhibits kindness towards the hostage. It went on to say how law enforcement officers should encourage the development of Stockholm syndrome because it improves the chance of hostage survival.

But that didn't really apply to her case. Miles really wouldn't hurt her, wouldn't let Bass hurt her again. He had felt so bad about the whole tooth thing, and he had only done it to protect her from Bass doing something worse. He had never told her this in so many words, but she knew it was true. She wasn't imagining it in some sort of evolutionary defense mechanism to ensure survival after being kidnapped by a 'cave-man' from another tribe. Miles  _really_  cared about her. Her situation might meet all of the criteria, but that didn't mean she had Stockholm syndrome, did it?

Rachel felt an intense urge to find out why Miles was keeping her in his rooms, why he was keeping her at all. Rachel asked, "Why are you doing this?"

Miles looked down at the board and examined his moves. Rachel suppressed a smile – as adorable as that was – it wasn't the time.

Miles looked back up at her and she continued, "I mean this…" she gestured at his room, the fire, and the remains of the dinner.

Miles licked his lips. He was thinking hard about something. Eventually he replied, "I just want to take care of you."

Rachel retorted, fear robbing her of caution, "If you care so much about me, why don't you let me just go?"

Miles sighed and replied evenly, "Let's say I did let you go, where would you go? What would you do? It's not like you could go home again."

Rachel bit her lip. She had missed the first letter, but even walking she should get to Chicago in plenty of time to be able to pick up the second letter Ben would leave her telling he where he and the kids were. If she told Miles, he might let her go. Ben might welcome her back after all this time. She'd be able to see her baby boy, and Charlie. But even if Miles let her go home, even if Ben welcomed her back, what would she do?  _She couldn't help them,_ she thought with despair and more than a touch of shame. She would only lead Bass to them. Rachel didn't want to think of what Bass might do to them. Miles couldn't protect all of them.

Miles must have read her mind. He said, "Your kids are fine. They have Ben to look out for them, and Charlotte has got to be what, thirteen, fourteen? They're fine."

Rachel did the math. She had just missed her daughter's thirteenth birthday. Her baby boy was nine and her daughter was a teenager. Here she'd been, living in this gilded cage, hardly noticing the passage of time, while out there she had missed her son's birthday, two of her daughter's, and more than likely her daughter's coming of age. She was despicable.

Miles tried to turn her attention back to the game, but she couldn't abide herself. She rolled over and stood up; she excused herself and fled for the bathroom. She was the worst mother in the world. She broke down, no longer able to keep her self-disgust in. Huge sobs wracked her body.

She had told Ben that she was doing this for the children. He would be better suited to keeping them fed and safe, and she'd be better suited to keeping Miles off their backs and away from the truth. But she hadn't thought about Danny in days, Ben and Charlie even longer. She hadn't been setting up the pieces of an elaborate gambit, she was just  _being_. She didn't deserve to go on. She had thought her kids were her reason to keep living, but as soon as she was offered a comfortable living situation, she forgot all about them. She was detestable, repugnant, revolting. Her stomach turned with self-hatred. Her mouth filled with saliva and her stomach clenched. She hurriedly made her way over to the old-fashioned toilet and heaved up her fancy, ill-gotten dinner.

She slammed her fists against the tile floor, wishing for a fast way out, battering her fists against the unyielding surface until they were bloody, trying to break a tile, trying for an easy out.

As she lay on the cold tile floor crying, she rubbed salt into her wounds, thinking about all the misfortunes that could have befallen her sweet baby boy, her happy little girl, or her dependable husband. She heard Miles leave and lay crying until the cold tiles had sucked away all her strength, tears, blood, and body-heat. She crawled up, and threw herself onto the bed, incorrectly thinking that she'd never fall asleep. She was wrong; she was asleep within minutes.

* * *

**Fifteen years after The Blackout**

Miles was stalking through The Tower. Rachel was in here somewhere. So were Charlie and Aaron, and hopefully Nora, he hadn't seen her since the bizarre water-slide thingy. She had to be safe; she couldn't have been swept downstream. Miles couldn't stand the thought that he might lose Nora again, not after what she had just been through. The only acceptable idea was that she was relatively safe somewhere.

He heard a gunshot. Not a coil-gun whirr-explode-y, but an honest to God gunshot. Must be militiamen. He followed the sound; saw a busted open door, and a militiaman choking Charlie. He gave the man a nice case of knife-through-throat syndrome.

Miles checked on Charlie, she was coughing.

Charlie said, "I'm okay," and pointed over to something else. One quick glance revealed Nora; Nora sitting in a pool of blood, holding her stomach. The pool was too big.

 _No. Not Nora._ Miles threw down his rifle and kneeled beside Nora. Nora's hands were bright red from her gut wound. This was bad.

Nora looked up into his eyes, her face wane, and said, "Rachel went down to Level 12. Militia is everywhere. You gotta go help her."

Miles ignored the self-sacrificing statement, asking Charlie, "We need some meds."

Charlie responded, still catching her breath, "Listen, there's an infirmary, but it's locked.

Miles brushed aside that statement too, Nora couldn't die, not after everything they went through, "Then we'll blast it open."

Nora interrupted, "Listen to me. Go. Go get the power on."

Nora stared into his eyes and all Miles could see was all the people he had hurt, had let get hurt. He had had enough. Not this time. Not again.

Miles said, "No, I'm not leaving you."

Nora said, trying to be strong, "You have to. Miles… Rachel needs you."

Miles paused a moment. Yes, he had an inexplicable bond with Rachel, a debt that could never be repaid, a dark and guilt-tainted love, but he didn't owe her this. Miles licked his lips.  _Not this._

He leaned down to look Nora in the eyes, and commanded, "Look at me."

She looked at him. She was trying so hard to be strong, but he could see fear and resolve battle in her dark eyes.

Miles repeated, "I'm not leaving you."

Nora accepted it this time. She suppressed a moan as he picked her up. Charlie, now fully recovered, grabbed both rifles and took point. Miles carried Nora through the stucco-ed maze, feeling her life's blood soak his shirt.

He kept on checking her, making sure that she was still breathing, was still with him.

Her breathing grew fainter and fainter. He was losing her. He couldn't lose her. She was his!

He asked Charlie, "How much further?"

She replied, "It's just up ahead."  _They had to make it in time!_

Charlie stopped, glancing back at him. He looked down. Nora was… gone.

This couldn't be happening. He had already almost lost her to Bass. She was so strong. She couldn't be gone. "Oh, no. No, no, no, no."

He kneeled down, placing her down on the floor.

He pleaded, "Nora. Nora."

Miles gently rolled her lolling head towards him. She wasn't breathing. She seemed so peaceful despite the healing bruises on her face. Bruises that Bass, or his men, had given her.

She began to blur, and Miles realized tears filled his eyes. Who had done this to his Nora? Militia? Tower People? He would make them pay. He blinked his tears out of his eyes. Why had God taken her away from him? They had just reconciled and then Bass took her, and Sanborn brought her back. She hadn't yet healed from the torture, how could God do this to her? To him? Miles ran his thumb along her soft cheek.

Tears welled in his eyes. Why take her, not him? He was far more deserving of death, had so much more blood on his hands, so much more black on his heart. His poor Nora. He leaned down and kissed her. Her soft lips still warm, pliable. He needed to remember her like this. Not as a bruised, bloody, body.

He couldn't have her haunting his dreams like that – he had too many ghosts to let Nora become another. He needed to remember her lips, her hair, her breasts, her ass, her attitude, her stride, her heart. He tried to get himself together. He still had Charlie. He couldn't lose her. He knuckled his tears away, fierce determination fixed on his face. He was going to protect Charlie. Find Rachel. Turn on the power. Kill the people who hurt Nora, and bring back the United States for Nora.

Miles loosened his St. Michael's medallion and slipped it over Nora's head. He knew she didn't really believe, but he'd fight for her to get into Heaven, or at least shorten her time in Purgatory.

He turned to Charlie. She too was grieving. He awkwardly gave her a hug and grabbed a rifle.

Miles said, "Come on, we have to turn the power on. For Nora."

Charlie, with the resilience of youth, nodded and added, "For Danny."

They reached the Level 12 landing and went down one of the hallways, not knowing where to go except that Rachel was down here somewhere.

Miles saw two militiamen walk past the end of the hall. He instinctively fired. He didn't know if they had killed Nora – hadn't had the time, or will, to ask Charlie what had happened – but they were in his way.

Once the two targets were eliminated, he ran to the end of hall, tailed by Charlie. They started taking out militiamen. Miles spared Charlie's boy-toy and his father on purpose, focusing on the enlisted men.

Rachel and Aaron ran to them, using their suppression fire as cover. Once Miles could sense Rachel, Charlie, and Aaron behind him, he strategically retreated. He hoped Rachel knew where the hell she was going. He only had so much ammo.

The design of this Tower was stupid, and it was hard for him to watch all of the various short intersecting hallways. He wished the architect were here so he could shoot him. Neville got close. Miles laid down more suppression fire. Miles couldn't sense the others anymore, and picked up the pace.

There. Rachel was holding a large door open for him. He ducked in and caught his breath. He heard the door lock securely behind them.  _Good. Safe for now._

Rachel asked, "Nora?"

Miles paused and licked his lips.

Charlie retorted, "She's dead."

Rachel looked at him, compassion in her eyes. He couldn't stand it and broke eye contact. She walked away from him. Towards a large screen, a large computer, focused on turning the power back on.


	16. Pandora

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: Thank you all for reading, commenting, and kudos'ing. Each notice makes me a happy camper!
> 
> Thank you also to xyber116 for beta'ing this chapter.
> 
> A tiny bit of dialogue taken from 1.20, written by Eric Kripke & Paul Grellong.
> 
> Trigger warnings: POV Stockholm syndrome/PTSD
> 
> I don't own the characters or Revolution; I'm just playing with them for a bit for fun, not profit.

**Nine years after The Blackout**

Rachel lay back, enjoying the warm water relaxing away her cramps. Sure willow-bark tea helped, but nothing quite beat a warm bath. Rachel luxuriated in the large claw-foot tub, her blonde hair resting over the edge of the tub, her mind wandering, her left thumb stroking her naked ring finger.

The bathroom door creaked open and Rachel sat up with a start.  _It was only Miles._  She relaxed back into the water.

Miles stared at her a few heartbeats before blushing and turning away. He said, "I'm sorry. The guard said you got the bathwater more than an hour ago. I thought you would be done. I'll be going now."

Rachel said without thinking, "No, it's okay. Stay." She was startled at her own impulse, but then again, after everything, what was a bit of skin?

She continued, quipping, "I don't have anything you haven't seen before. Though they may be less perky."

The back of Miles' neck turned bright red. That was odd. Rachel couldn't remember a single time she'd seen him blush, and wondered what had caused the intense reaction. She had thought she was teasing him about the new contractor/bounty hunter he had thought so highly of, and had started seeing recently.

Lately, he had dropped by a lot less and had reduced the number of their dinners together. Had even cancelled a few last-minute! Rachel told herself that she was fine with it. It would be wrong for her to expect to be the most important woman in her brother-in-law's life.

Anyways, she had grown accustomed to this curtailed life. It used to be that she thought she'd go mad if she was just a stay-at-home-mom, but here she didn't even have the freedom to drive to the grocery store, yet she found herself not unhappy. She had the time and freedom to explore fields of science and areas of literature she hadn't before – it wasn't as intellectually stimulating as trouble-shooting lab issues and synthesizing a logical explanation for all of the data, but by the sheer amount of poetry and prose she had read and critically thought about, she should get another PhD in literature.

Miles turned around and spoke, turning her attention back to the present, "I never apologized for that night. And I am; sorry that is."

Rachel was confused, and tried to trace his mental processes, tried to figure out what he was apologizing for.

Miles continued, "I shouldn't have drunk so much with Bass. I shouldn't have made you drive out to that sleazy bar. I shouldn't have made a move on you – shouldn't have done that you and Ben – and I most certainly should have listened to you when you said no. I was a dick and I was only thinking with mine."

Rachel placed the incident he was referring to. It had happened in Indiana after Bass' family's funeral. Bass and Miles had gotten stupidly drunk and had called Ben's cell for a ride back.  _Oh, to have a cellphone now_. Ben was exhausted from writing a manuscript in the gaps between wake, funeral service, reception, and family meals – a manuscript that never actually got published because of DOD meddling – and Rachel had a hard time sleeping, so she had picked the boys up. She had gotten Bass settled on the couch and was helping Miles up the stairs when he had pressed her against the banister, kissing her neck, tangling his calloused hands in her hair. She had told him "no" several times, but he just wasn't getting the picture. He had gotten her blouse halfway off when she had had enough. She kneed him in the balls and fled up several steps. She had held her blouse closed around her pregnant belly and hormone-boosted breasts and firmly told him, 'Get out of this house, I don't want to see your sorry-ass face until you're sober.'

Rachel had tried not to think of the incident. At the time she was livid, and dismayed. But she learned that Gail and Bill Monroe were like a second mother and father to Miles, and his two sisters were like his kid sisters too. Ben said that Miles had spent more time at their house than at his own during the summers. She supposed she should cut him some slack. And once she knocked some sense into him, he had fled in mortification, so he had that much going for him. She  _was_  surprised at how he had almost completely cut off contact with Ben after that. He started giving Ben the most ridiculous excuses for why he couldn't come over for holidays.

Rachel became aware of their long silence, and the fact that Miles was staring at her. She glanced down; her breasts were floating on the water, making them appear more ample than they really were. It was odd; she felt no shame.

Rachel said, "Turn around."

Miles promptly did so, his neck still cherry red. Rachel stepped out of the tub and grabbed her towel, wrapping it around herself.

Rachel walked past him and left a trail of wet footprints from the bathroom to the main room of her suite. She grabbed her panties and slid them on underneath the towel. She sat down on a wooden chair and looked at Miles. His face wasn't quite as red as the back of his neck, but it was still pretty red.

Rachel organized her thoughts and said, "Bass' folks had just died, and you were pretty close. The alcohol had shut off all your higher brain functions…"

Miles interrupted, "Just piss-ant excuses."

Rachel continued, "You were a dick, but once I knocked some sense into the only head you were using, you had the decency to stop, to be ashamed. Now, let's stop dwelling on something that happened more than a decade ago; why did you stop by?"

Miles paced around the room, either he wasn't sure he should be let off the hook so easily, or he had bad news to tell her. Rachel tensed, afraid that he had found Ben and the kids, that this was the reason for his trip down memory lane.

Miles licked his lips and looked at her, "Rachel, I'm going on an extended mission to Georgia. Alec and Nora are coming with me. Will you be okay here, alone?"

Rachel smiled; _this was what he was worried about?_  Rachel reassured Miles, "I'll be fine."

Miles continued, "Bass should be away most of the time. Major Hudson will be in charge when we're both out – you've met him, right? Jeremy will be on messenger duty, expect him to drop by once a month or so."

"Wait, how many months are you gonna be gone?" Asked Rachel, not aware of how long 'extended' was.

"At least eight, maybe more." Replied Miles.

Rachel felt a surge of fear, but she crushed it ruthlessly. She didn't need to be baby-sat, didn't need him hovering around her, protecting her 24-7.

"Miles, I'll be fine. Have fun with Nora," she tried to quip, not noticing the touch of bitterness in her voice.

* * *

**Fifteen years after The Blackout**

Miles head was still ringing with Rachel's simple 'I'm sorry about Nora.' He wasn't ready to deal with any of that, and something told him that he wouldn't like finding out how Nora got her wound, but he had to focus himself on this whack-job. This Mr. Flynn had just pushed some giant red button and sent fleets of Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles to Atlanta and Philly. Miles was certain there had to be safe guard to prevent one lone psycho from doing  _this_  weren't there? Some two-key turn system or double-verification passwords!  _Why wasn't there a fucking two-key turn system?!_  He shot at the Plexiglas, trying to stop this mass destruction from happening.

The whack-job shot and destroyed the button, yammering on, spewing his crazy nonsense about being a fucking patriot. Miles couldn't rip his eyes away from those red arrows homing in on Philadelphia and Atlanta – on Clare the bar owner, Jim the stable boy, and President Foster. Nora had died for  _this_?

Then the whack-job blew his brains out.

Miles desperately said, "There's got to be a way to get in there. How do we – Rachel, how do we get in?"

Rachel stood still a few seconds watching the screen, and then ran off; Miles tailed her. There was a shot-to-hell card access point.

Rachel shouted back to the others, "There's no way in."

Miles staggered back to the dented Plexiglas window. He felt the need to sit at the wake for all of these soon-to-be dead people. To respect their last few moments of life.

The red arrows stopped moving.

Charlie turned around and asked Aaron, her voice full of awe, "What did you do?"

Miles glanced back; Aaron was sitting back at the computer.

Aaron replied, "I don't know, maybe saved hundreds of thousands of lives, maybe nothing, maybe nuked some poor unsuspecting innocent farmers."

Miles swallowed. Had Aaron turned the power back of? ICBMs did need computer guidance… maybe the missile heading for Philly would land in the Atlantic.

Aaron looked uncertain, a mix of jubilation and dread etched on his face. Miles felt the other man needed some moral support, and hell, if he had saved all those lives, he deserved it. He walked over and placed a hand on his shoulder.

Miles said, "You did good, Chuckles."

Rachel returned from futilely attacking the other door, a hangdog look upon her face. She glanced puzzled at the two men, and Aaron replied semi-proudly, "I turned the power off again."

Rachel gave him a small smile, like he had just announced he made cookies, and turned to the large screen, studying it intently.

Miles caught Charlie glaring at her mother. Miles felt they all needed to have a little sit-down, but now was not the time. He stopped Charlie's imminent attack with a look, and she left the room in a huff.

Rachel shouted. Miles scanned the room for enemies, his adrenaline spiking. She was pointing at the computers in the main control room. They were dying.

Rachel ran over to Aaron. She was shouting and he was rapidly typing.

Miles asked Rachel what was going on, and was ignored, and Charlie returned to the room, drawn by the commotion.

Aaron calmly said, "If everyone could please stop shouting please."

Miles grabbed Charlie's shoulder for moral support, whether hers or his he couldn't tell, as they both tried following what Aaron was doing.

A few minutes later, Aaron crowed in success, "Don't hack a hacker, buster!"

Then all the computer monitors and the lights, and even the faint hum of the ventilation system, turned off.

"Well, here we are, again," dryly said Miles.

Rachel asked Aaron, "What happened?"

"A hacker, from near Austin, Texas, released a virus into the nanite's code. Whatever was keeping The Tower immune to the effects of the nanites must have failed," replied Aaron.

Charlie lit a candle and Rachel asked, "Well, now what?"

Charlie angrily retorted, "I don't know,  _Rachel_ , know anyone else who deserves to bleed-out?"

Rachel turned, her enraged face made even more threatening by the flickering candlelight.  _Well fuck._  This was neither the time nor the place for this discussion, and he was fucked if he had to play intermediate between these two women. They were far too similar. Too iron-willed and determined.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," he said as he stepped in between the two women, "Can we not do this now?"

They reluctantly nodded, the candlelight reflecting off of two stubborn faces, glinting off of four steely, blue eyes.

"Thank you Miles, and I'm sorry…" said Rachel.

Miles abruptly cut her off with a terse, "Not now." He wasn't in the mood. It was too raw. Too soon.

Rachel nodded, and Charlie said, "I say we get out of here, who knows what Neville is up to, and what the rest of the Tower people will do with us."

 _Yes, first things first, get out of here alive, then sort all this shit out_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- Author's Note: Reviews and constructive criticism are greatly appreciated :) I will elaborate on how Aaron stopped the nukes in a as-of-yet untitled story that I'm writing for the #ClaytonLives story contest on fanfiction.net. I'm just going to focus on the progression of Miles and Rachel's relationship in this one.


	17. The Awful Truth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: Thank you all for reading and reviewing.
> 
> Thank you also to xyber116 for beta'ing this chapter.
> 
> Trigger warnings: POV Stockholm syndrome/PTSD
> 
> I don't own the characters or Revolution; I'm just playing with them for a bit for fun, not profit.

**Ten years after The Blackout**

Miles woke up in his bedroll, panting, sweating, with jizz in his boxers. Nora was sleeping soundly nearby. He and Nora had a large former National Guard tent all to themselves – a perk of leadership. Miles stared at one mold-stained corner of the thick canvas tent. He didn't know what he was going to do with himself. It was as if seeing Rachel naked after all of these years had thrown a switch in his mind, had released some mental block. He'd been lying to himself this whole time. He wasn't protective of Rachel because she was Ben's wife; he was protective of her 'cause Bass was right. He loved her. It was a sick and twisted thing.  _He_  was a sick and twisted thing. Miles shouldn't be dreaming about Rachel. Rachel was Ben's wife. He respected Ben too much to poach his wife – he repressed the fact that he'd been keeping the self-same wife as a prisoner for over three years.

 _And_  he had Nora. Nora wasn't some guilt-free consolation prize. She was an amazing woman who could understand him better than Rachel ever would. Could understand what made him tick better than Rachel could. Could throw a knife through someone's eye into his brain from 30 feet away. Could build a pipe-bomb from random scavenged crap. Could snark with the best of them. She was one hell of a woman. Then why did he keep dreaming about Rachel?

Not just any dreams. Not simply dreams of college-Rachel, or simply lusty sex. No, his dreams were elaborate rescue scenarios. He'd come back early from his training session two years ago and save Rachel from her nightmare-man. Most of the time he just had a blank skin-toned oval for a face, but sometimes it was Strausser, and sometimes it was Bass. But Miles would get there in time. Would prevent her nightmares from ever coming into being. Rachel would wrap him in her arms, and  _then_  she'd show him how grateful she was.

He was fucked up. He wished he'd never taken Rachel in the first place. Then he wouldn't be in this situation of having to decide if he should see if Rachel wanted anything close to what he wanted, or if he should let her go and try to forget about her, or if he should man up and push his feelings aside.

Miles rolled out of his bedroll and went over to his washbowl. He splashed some water on his face and wet a washcloth. As he cleaned himself up, he thought about what he should do. Bass would be excited that he finally got the balls to admit his feelings and tell him to go for it, completely bull-rushing over the morality of the whole fucking situation. Ben, well even if it wasn't his wife, he would still probably tell him to not even think about going there, and to let Nora know as gently as possible that his heart wasn't fully in their relationship. Ben had always been the angel on his shoulder and Bass the devil. What Miles really needed was a third opinion – but whose?

Jeremy wasn't here right now, and he was kind of a bozo. He'd probably draw comparisons between Miles' situation and some soap opera, and that wasn't exactly the sort of advice he wanted. Alec was a good kid, but Miles wasn't about to ask him for advice about women, it was supposed to be the other way around! David Kipling was a solid man, but he liked his hookers – no strings, no emotions, just a nice fuck. Jim wasn't around either, and he too liked his women to come without strings. And Jim genuinely liked Nora. As a person, which was saying a lot for the normally chauvinistic guy. Both of them would be bewildered by the amount of thought he was putting into this.

Anyways, he had time to decide. They were almost done with their retaliatory land grab. That would teach 'President' Foster what was what. Miles crawled back into bed and accidentally woke Nora. She gave him a sultry look and Miles responded in kind.  _What better way to take his mind off of his issues with Rachel?_

* * *

**Fifteen years after The Blackout**

Rachel stared into the fire, shivering in the cold mountain air. The boys were off looking for more firewood, and Charlie was watching the camp armed with one of the stolen rifles. Rachel had nearly drowned in their escape from The Tower via the water-cooling system, and the Penrose River was pretty damn cold. The water was fresh snowmelt, and even though it had been used to cool down The Tower's supercollider and klystron, the water was still only a few degrees above freezing.

Miles had warned them that the water would be cold and Rachel intellectually knew it would be cold, but damn; it had been so cold that her peripheral nervous system neglected tell her she was cold after the first few minutes. It had been almost pleasant. Except for the whole trying not to drown thing. It was second time in as many days that she had almost died, and the second time in as many days that her body won. Perhaps the universe was telling her something; maybe that the mind over matter cliché was a load of crap.

Rachel laughed a cold harsh biting laugh – a laugh without a trace of mirth or joy.

Rachel could feel the weight of Charlie's eyes on her back. Rachel turned and looked at her daughter, memorizing the glint in her eye, the set of her jaw, the slight curl to her lip.

… _In what distant deeps or skies/ Burnt the fire of thine eyes?..._  


Charlie said, "I hate you. You're a psychopath."

_I was angry with my friend:/ I told my wrath, my wrath did end…_

Rachel suppressed another mirthless laugh, knowing it would only drive her daughter further away – and not really help her illusion of sanity. Rachel knew her daughter hated her for leaving Nora to die, but Rachel could only feel a dull, distant echo of regret. She had done what she had thought would be best at the time, and looking back, second guessing, only led to more pain.

Rachel wanted to mend her shattered relationship with her daughter, but was certain that it would be impossible. She tried calming herself with her mantra but the words tasted like chalk on her lips – dry and faintly bitter. She looked up and caught Charlie glaring at her with her stark blue eyes. On one level Rachel was sad that Charlie hated her so, and on a deeper level she was sadder that her happy little girl hated  **anyone**  so fiercely.

… _And what shoulder, & what art./ Could twist the sinews of thy heart?..._  


Rachel looked at her daughter and said wearily, "Go ahead and hate me Charlie. I deserve it. But just know one thing."

Charlie retorted, voice full of attitude like the teenager Rachel never got to meet, "What?"

Rachel softly replied, "No matter how much you hate me, you'll never hate me more than I hate myself. I've got a lot more practice than you."

… _And I sunned it with smiles,/ And with soft deceitful wiles…_  


Charlie just looked puzzled and Rachel continued, "Do you think I  _want_ to be this person? This cold calculating bitch? Of course I don't. I'm broken Charlie, broken."

Rachel paused and looked at her daughter. Charlie seemed on the verge of caving.

_When the stars threw down their spears,/ And watered heaven with their tears,/ Did he smile his work to see?_

Rachel continued, "I thought that by fixing the world I could fix myself, by revenging Danny I could revenge myself, but look at how that turned out. And being  _her_  is the only way I can stay together enough to… " Rachel trailed off,  _ **did**_ _she have any goals to live for? To finally kill Bass? To help Aaron find this Texan hacker and turn the power back on, again? To get to know her daughter? For Miles?_

As Rachel was pondering why she fought to keep the shattered pieces of her self together, she felt a young, wiry arm rest over her shoulder. Rachel leaned into the warmth of daughter's lean legs.  _Carefully timed reveal of the truth for the win, again,_ celebrated Rachel.

…  _And it grew both day and night/ Till it bore an apple bright;_   _…_  



	18. Reckoning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: Thank you all for reading and commenting.
> 
> Thank you also to xyber116 for beta'ing this chapter.
> 
> Trigger warnings: POV Stockholm syndrome/PTSD
> 
> I don't own the characters or Revolution; I'm just playing with them for a bit for fun, not profit.

**Ten years after The Blackout**

It was late evening and Rachel was reading a botany book at her desk, yes she had scraped so low as to start reading about plants she'd never get to see, when Bass burst into her room.

"Rachel, Rachel, come quick, you've got to see this!" he shouted, gesturing frantically.

Rachel closed her botany book, tossed it haphazardly onto the desk, and followed him out of her room.  _Miles should be coming back soon. Was he back already?_  She was so focused on that happy thought, that she didn't notice the lack of guards at her door.

She raced behind Bass, hoping to catch her first glimpse of Miles. Rachel had managed to catch up with Bass, and even overtake him a little, when out of the corner of her eye she saw him stop. She tried to stop too, but the floor was slick – not wet slick,  _greased_  slick – she windmilled her arms, trying to stop herself when she slid right out a huge open window at the end of the hall.

A scream of pure terror was ripped from her throat as the Earth's gravity pulled her down at 9.8 m/s^2, and she thought of Danny, her sickly, tiny baby, of Miles, of Ben, of Charlie. She landed on the gravel with a thud, a wave of pain reverberating through her, focusing on her wrist and clavicle, and then her world went black in a profusion of pain.

* * *

Rachel woke up to the feeling of numbed pain and murmured voices.

"You have to hurry."

"He's coming."

"Here's the paralytic."

Rachel vaguely felt a needle pinch her at the elbow and then her eyes closed of their own volition.

Rachel felt a sheet being thrown over her, and some eternity later the cool breeze of it being removed.

Light-years away and eons, she could hear Miles' voice, ranting, raving, grieving. He would save her.  _Was she dead?_ She wanted to comfort him, but it was hard enough just breathing through this fog.

Inhale, thud, thud, thud.

Exhale, thud, thud, thud, thud.

Rachel heard Bass' voice, and felt the sheet being thrown over her again.

Inhale, thud, thud, thud.

Exhale, thud, thud, thud, thud.

Rachel slipped even further from consciousness.

* * *

**Fifteen years after The Blackout**

Miles walked back to the camp, a few sagebrush bushes piled on his back. He couldn't find any dry deadwood in this desolate area, and had gotten some stinky, sticky sap on his stolen sword while attempting to hack at the brush. He didn't know if it would burn, but there was no fucking way he would return to camp empty-handed.

Rachel had scared the shit out of him. Seeing her small hunched body, unmoving on the opposite shore, he had been sure he was going to lose another one of the few people he cared about,  _and_  before he could work out his rage at her too, Charlie had filled him in about how Rachel had ignored her pleas and had abandoned Nora to bleed-out.

Miles padded softly into camp, mostly to test Charlie's abilities, when he heard Rachel's voice crackle with emotion, "Do you think I  _want_ to be this person? This cold calculating bitch? Of course I don't. I'm broken Charlie, broken."

Miles paused; he wanted to hear more, to hear if Rachel would finally breathe a word about what had happened to her in Bass' hands. Why she was broken, and maybe why she wasn't  _more_  broken.

Rachel continued, "I thought that by fixing the world I could fix myself, by revenging Danny I could revenge myself, but look at how that turned out. And being  _her_  is the only way I can stay together enough to… " Rachel trailed off, silent.

Miles could see Charlie lay an arm on her mother's shoulder, and Rachel lean against her daughter's legs.

Miles felt a strong sense of déjà vu. This was not the first time he had watched mother and daughter embrace in the firelight, but it was the first time he was afraid Rachel would hurt her daughter, unintentionally on some damned fool quest. He had yet to work out his own knotted feelings about Rachel and her single-minded focus on getting the power back – all of the destruction she may or may not have caused, her role in Nora's death, it was all just too much. His own feelings for Charlie were far simpler – he had failed to protect her mother, father, and brother; he would  **not**  fail to protect her. Even if the person he had to protect her from was Rachel.

Miles intentionally stepped on a twig, and was pleased to note Charlie's quick response – weapon and eyes trained on the direction of the unannounced visitor within a few seconds.

Miles softly called, "It's me." And watched Charlie lower her gun. It would be better if they didn't have to have a fire – it was visible for miles – even tucked away in this little stream-worn gorgelet. It blinded guards and the smoke could be smelled for miles too, but Rachel was damn near frozen solid and needed the heat in this cold, thin mountain desert air, especially since the militia still had her jacket.

Miles piled the sagebrush near the small blaze, and Charlie walked away to watch the camp from a different vantage point. Miles was grateful.

Rachel examined Miles in a series of small, attempting-to-be-subtle peeks. Eventually she worked up the courage or whatnot and asked, "How long were you standing there?"

Miles quirked a half grin, "You should be the one on guard duty."

Rachel replied wearily, "Well-honed survival instinct."

Miles grimaced at the implications.

Rachel continued, "I'm not trying to pass the buck on Nora. I knew what I was doing. I thought it was for the best, 'the needs of the many…' and all that, and I didn't know about Randall."

Miles nodded. You could trust Rachel to try to justify her irrational decisions by quoting Spock.

Rachel caught and held his eyes with her ice-blue eyes, with a darker, ocean-blue ring around them.

"Miles, I'm sorry about Nora. I know you loved her, I know Charlie loved her. I would have done things differently had I known about Randall."

Miles was torn. This apathetic 'apology' scarcely scratched the surface of their issues, but he wasn't ready to move on. Not by a long shot. Nora was an amazing woman how didn't deserve to die for such an awful cause. Miles tried to remember the vibrant, sexy woman in her prime, not as a corpse.

But Rachel was right, she was broken, and he had had a large role in her breaking.

Before Miles could come up with a response of any sort, he could hear Aaron trample through the brush and grass, disrupting the mood.

Miles studied what Aaron held in his hands, they looked like dried road-apples.

He looked at Aaron questioningly, and the chubby hacker quickly explained, "I couldn't find any wood, and this is what the old pioneers used on the Oregon Trail."

At Miles' further inquiring look, he continued, "The real one, not the computer game, and they should burn better than sagebrush."

Miles nodded, and stood up to spell Charlie in guard duty. It was a good thing his subtle training of Aaron was progressing so smoothly; someday he might be helpful and un-annoying member of the party.


	19. Unveiled

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: Thank you all for reading and commenting. Each notice makes me happy, and as RL stinks right now, I'll take what I can get.
> 
> Thank you also to xyber116 for beta'ing this chapter.
> 
> Trigger warnings: POV Stockholm syndrome/PTSD
> 
> I don't own the characters or Revolution; I'm just playing with them for a bit for fun, not profit.

**Ten years after The Blackout**

Miles knew something was wrong the moment he saw the carefully blanked look on Bass' face. It didn't occur to him that it might be Rachel.

Bass looked into his eyes and said, "I've got some bad news for you, my friend."

Miles raised an eyebrow inquiringly, and Bass just said, "I can't. It's better if I just show you."

Miles stomach clenched. He didn't know  _what_  was wrong, but his stomach figured it was bad.

Bass led him to a quiet storeroom, and gestured to a stretcher with a body underneath a mostly white sheet. Miles waited, wondering who lay beneath it. Bass threw off the sheet, revealing Rachel.

Miles felt the earth fall out from beneath him. His mouth filled with saliva, and he swallowed hard, trying not to puke. He studied her scratched face, twisted wrist, bloody hands and elbows, the fact that she was wearing her wedding band again – he didn't remember when she had stopped wearing it, but she had sometime during the past year, before he left – anything to avoid looking at the lopsided way she was lying, her closed eyes, her unmoving chest.

Inhale, thud, thud.

Exhale, thud, thud.

Inhale.

Miles said, "What... What happened?" His voice was thick, full of rage, full of grief. He went to go touch her, to say his good-byes, when Bass engulfed him in a hug.

Bass said, "I'm sorry man. This is all my fault. Yesterday I told Rachel that you and Nora were coming back today; I thought she'd be pleased. Last night she garroted her one of her guards – the other guard was in the bathroom, I have him in for questioning – and leapt from a third-floor window. If I hadn't told her you were coming back… it's all my fault."

Miles caught Bass carefully studying his face, and Bass stepped back, kindly throwing the sheet back over Rachel's broken, lifeless body.

Bass continued, "She had that with her." He pointed to a small bag sitting on a chair in the corner of the storeroom.

Bass studied Miles and said, "Let's get you something to drink."

Bass grabbed Rachel's small pack and placed a firm hand on Miles shoulder. He guided Miles from the room. Led him to his office. Sat him down in his chair. Poured him a glass of whiskey.

Miles drank a slug of whiskey, watching a concerned Bass watch him, his mind a tangled mess of confusion and bewilderment.

When Bass handed him Rachel's pack, he went through it, a quarter of his mind cataloguing the contents. One clean shirt and some socks. Several pieces of jewelry and nibs of trade-weight gold. One butter-knife sharped with determination to a useable edge. One plastic bottle filled with water. A few dried, old rolls and stale cheese. One slim book on Krav Maga. Miles leafed through the volume; along the side, in Rachel's crisp slant-y hand, were notes on the practicality of the various kill techniques. Rachel had been planning this for quite some time.

Miles' tangled mind only got more knotted. But since when? Things were going so  _well_. He had come to a decision about his feelings for Rachel, and then she off and dies in an escape attempt! Was it an escape attempt or was it suicide? Was it 'cause of Nora? Did Bass do something to her?  _Why?_

Miles took another gulp, rejoicing in the familiar burn. A constant in an ever-changing world.

Miles studied Bass closely and said, his voice as sharp and as brittle as obsidian, "What did you do to her Bass?"

Bass blinked and said, "Nothing. I didn't touch her, didn't talk to her – until yesterday – didn't threaten her, didn't countermand any of your standing orders 'bout her."

Bass' tone took on an edge of anger, "I didn't pander to her like you did, but I sure as hell didn't kill her."

Miles stared at his whiskey. Bass was telling the truth. The pure and simple truth. But why would Rachel leap from a third-floor window to escape? Why would she try to escape in the first place? Was it an escape attempt? Was it suicide? Why would she do either? He wasn't keeping her as a prisoner, not really. If she asked to be released he would have let her go, he told himself. He would have respected her wishes despite his feelings. He tried foisting the blame off on to anyone but himself, but he knew in his heart of hearts it was.  _He_  should have let her go years ago.

* * *

**Fifteen years after The Blackout**

Two nights after their escape from The Tower, Rachel lay on the hard, clay-rich soil, curled up in Miles' long brown coat. They had lost almost everything except Aaron's backpack and a couple of stolen rifles, they would have to barter or steal everything they would need in order to get to Texas. They didn't really have anything they could barter, and she knew her daughter would be against stealing from the innocent – not that there  _were_  any innocents left.

 

… _And into my garden stole/ When the night had veiled the pole:…_

Rachel heard Miles walk back to camp. He had a very distinctive footstep, neither a firm stride nor a simple walk. After a few moments of inner debate, Rachel crawled out of her coat-cocoon and draped it over Charlie's sleeping form. She walked over to the boulder Miles was sitting upon, and joined him.

Miles quietly asked, "Can't sleep?"

Rachel replied, "Nope."

Miles asked, "You okay?"

Rachel replied, "Nope."

Miles turned and looked at her. Rachel kept her face serene, "Miles, you've been treating me like a damn wilting flower. I'm broken, but not that kind of broken. I'm not going to shatter if we go several extra miles a day."

Miles replied soothingly, "I'm sorry, it's just that…"

Rachel interrupted, "And I'm not gonna throw myself off of a cliff if things don't go my way. I'm a big girl; you've been pussyfooting around me all day. I  _know_  you're still mad at me, and in the immortal words of William Blake 'I was angry with my friend:/ I told my wrath, my wrath did end.'

Miles looked confused, but she knew it was for show; he wasn't nearly as culturally illiterate as he liked to make it seem. She had read him quite a few of Blake's poems over the years, and he had liked and understood them. Rachel settled into the boulder, she could outwait Miles. He wasn't as impatient as Bass, but he didn't have her endurance.

One thousand, four hundred, and thirty-five breaths later, Miles exploded, "I can't accept the fact that you left Nora to die without batting an eye! A woman who had been nothing but helpful to you, and had helped your daughter enormously! And you looked Charlie straight in the eye and ignored her pleas. I'm not sure I can trust you with your own daughter."

Rachel grimaced, not sure he wasn't wrong, and asked instead, "Why did you help Charlie?"

Miles smiled a wry grin she could just faintly make out in the starlight. It was amazing how clear the stars were in the thin desert air with no light pollution.

 

_Tyger! Tyger! burning bright/ In the forests of the night…_

Miles said, "I wasn't gonna, not at first. Who was she to me? Just Ben's daughter, your daughter, pieces of a past I was trying to erase with alcohol-induced brain damage. But the fierce way she stood up to me, demanding that I help 'cause we were family... And then she came back to help me. She reminded me of you. She had your hair, Ben's chin, and most importantly your eyes. Your crystal-clear blue eyes that used to be so joyful and free."

Rachel thought,  _Bass was right; he is a huge sap._

Miles continued, "I stayed for those eyes too. I watched them take the weight of the world upon them, like yours. I watched become fierce, like yours; judgmental, like yours. Both you and Charlie now have hard and guarded eyes. I never  _wanted_  that to happen. I just want your eyes to stop being so calculating, so world-weary."

Rachel thought, _Nora was right; he does love me._

 

… _Love seeketh not Itself to please,/ Nor for itself hath any care…_

Miles asked softly, "What did Bass do to you?"

Rachel turned and looked at Miles, as gently as she could, she said, "Not tonight." She placed a hand on his shoulder and switched subjects, "I can't promise I won't hurt Charlie, but with your help, I promise to try harder to be a better mother."

Rachel stood up from the boulder, and felt Miles' eyes follow her back to the camp. Aaron's watch was supposed to start an hour ago, but she never heard Miles wake him up as she lay staring up at the stars, trying to get to sleep.

 

_Tyger! Tyger! burning bright/ In the forests of the night…_


	20. Fait Accompli

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading and kudos'ing.
> 
> Thank you also to xyber116 for beta'ing this chapter.
> 
> Trigger warnings: POV Stockholm syndrome/PTSD
> 
> I don't own the characters or Revolution; I'm just playing with them for a bit for fun, not profit.

**Ten years after The Blackout**

Rachel was in a light, airy dormer. There were lacy, gently wafting curtains on the two casement windows. One nurse and two militiamen stood nearby. Bass sauntered in preceded by two more militiamen. He was carrying a bouquet of pink hydrangeas.

"I hope you are doing well," said Bass.

Rachel had already learned that replying in any manner other than one of strict civility would be promptly punished. Any hint of insolence would make the punishment that much worse. It was amusing, in an abstract sort of way, how undone Bass was by insolence. From working with many different scientists Rachel had learned that one's self-perception and the need for external respect or approval were inversely correlated. If this maxim held true for Bass, then he must really have poor self-esteem.

Rachel replied, "Yes, Bass, I'm doing quite well, all things considered."

Bass set the hydrangeas down on her bedside table and sat down, folding his hands in his lap.

Bass asked, "What was Ben working on?"

Rachel suppressed her peevishness at Bass's dismissal of her own role. It didn't matter. Getting out of here was what mattered.

Rachel responded to Bass' question with the DOD prepared cover, "Ben was an algebra teacher." Rachel personally thought that that was a stupid cover, why algebra, but that was the DOD cover, so she was going to stick to it.

Bass responded, "Why would an algebra teacher know that the power would go out and not come back on. Ben  _knew_  why the lights went out. Did Ben know how to turn the back on?"

Rachel calmly replied, "I don't know what you're talking about."

Bass said earnestly, "Rachel, come on we know each other too well for this dissembling. Make it easier on yourself, tell me what Ben knew. Miles isn't gonna save you; he thinks you're dead."

Rachel's stomach clenched with the thought of Miles, her protector, being unable to protect her. But Bass was right, he thought she was dead, she had heard him. It was a done deal. He wasn't gonna save her.

She smiled a small coy smile, "You're right."

Bass waited expectantly.

Rachel continued, "We know each other too well for these lies. How many Christmas dinners did you come over for? How many Thanksgivings?"

Perhaps if Rachel brought up their shared past Bass would at least realize how sick this mockery of friendship really was. He wouldn't release her, she had no hope of that, but maybe he'd put her in an honest cell instead of this gilded cage. She was done with this false face of devotion and virtue – she'd rather a bare devil than one sugar o'ered.

Bass nodded, "Remember that year that Ben burnt the stuffing?"

Rachel continued, "Yes, the whole house stank for a week afterwards. Remember the year before, when you brought a 19-year-old with you to Thanksgiving."

Bass continued, chuckling, "Yep, she wanted to bring a bottle of wine, but got carded at the liquor store."

Rachel smiled, "Yeah, and you insisted that we make homemade cranberry sauce that year, and I admit, it was loads better than canned."

Bass smiled in return, "Of course I was right. When was this, 2006?"

Rachel continued, "No, 2005, the same year you spilt red wine on our carpet. Man, was the landlord pissed."

Bass' face grew cold once more. He said, "Out of respect for our friendship, I've let you recover here, but if you don't stop playing games and start helping me, you'll force me to take measures I'd rather not."

Rachel twisted her wedding ring, some time this past year she had stopped wearing it, she didn't really know why, but had woken up from her "near death experience" with the ring on her finger.

Bass stood up and said, "Genevieve has told me you are almost recovered from your little tumble, I'll give you a little more time to decide, but decide you must."

As Bass walked through the door, trailed by two militiamen, Rachel started reciting her mantra from three years ago, a mantra that despite all of the new poetry in her mind from years of doing nothing but reading, was still beyond apt.

_I was angry with my foe:_

_I told it not, my wrath did grow._

_And I watered it in fears,_

_Night and morning with my tears;_

_And I sunned it with smiles,_

_And with soft deceitful wiles._

_And it grew both day and night_

_Till it bore an apple bright;_

_And my foe beheld it shine,_

_And he knew that it was mine,_

_And into my garden stole_

_When the night had veiled the pole:_

_In the morning glad I see_

_My foe outstretched beneath the tree._

* * *

**Fifteen years after The Blackout**

Miles was continuing Charlie's training. Without Nora, she was his number two, and she needed her skills honed.

Rachel walked up to them sparing, and after the bout was over she said, "My turn."

Miles wanted to cock his eyebrow at her, but she would go off on him whenever she thought he was 'mollycoddling' her, so he appeased her and said, "Warm up first."

Charlie grabbed a water-skin. Miles was still a bit ashamed of what he had had to do to get their minimal gear, but he supposed it could have been worse. Who would have known that Trinidad, CO was the "Sex Change Capital of the World," and many of the post-op transgendered people had thought he was quite a stud?

Singing several Dixie Chicks songs in drag Priscilla, Queen of the Desert style certainly would stay in his memory for quite a while, but it had gotten them some much needed bedrolls, backpacks, water-skins, a bit of food, two swords, and a jacket for Rachel. Everything they needed to get to Austin, find the hacker, reprogram the nanites, and get the power back on. For Nora. For Danny.

As he was reminiscing, Rachel had completed a set of jumping jacks and had moved on to stretches. Her light shirt was damp from sweat in the mid-June desert sun.

Miles off-handedly said, "You might want to take off your shirt, so you have something dry to change into this afternoon."

Rachel looked at him like he had suggested killing and eating a baby in front of its mother. He knew she had a bra on underneath and it wasn't like he was a peeping tom or something.

Miles put his hands up in surrender, "Fine, if you don't want to, it's no skin off of my back."

Rachel visibly flinched at that cliché turn of phrase. Miles' stomach sank to the bottom of his red dust covered boots. Miles stared into Rachel's pale blue eyes, and she just stared back. It was as if they were having a contest of wills.

Eventually, Rachel firmly set her face, and drew off her shirt, revealing her back. Miles didn't know who had won that battle of wills, as he forced himself to turn off his emotional response and just study her back. He ran his hand through his once chestnut brown hair and silently swore.

Her shoulder blades and mid-back bore an elaborate design of outstretched wings covered a bit by her bra straps. Many of the individual feathers were made out of blackened scar tissue. Miles didn't even know how you could do that. The outline of the wings and wing-tip feathers were just normal pale, raised scar tissue and Miles recognized the overall artistry of the work – Strausser's scalpel had done this. On her lower back, reaching down below the top of her jeans was a thorn-hedge. The thicket of main stems was made out of pale scar tissue and each small thorn was blackened.

Charlie walked over to her mother and simply asked, "How?"

Miles replied for Rachel, "Strausser."

Rachel nodded, and expanded, "Bass decided I was as beautiful as an angel, and as prickly as a thorn bush. Each week he'd decide if I had been more 'angelic' or more 'thorny' and Strausser would work on the opposite piece while Bass questioned me about Ben and the power."

The flat, even way Rachel said that, like she was reading off a grocery list, tugged at Miles' heart.

Charlie asked, "Does it still hurt?"

Rachel glanced at her daughter and said, "No. Go ahead if you want to touch it."

Charlie ghosted her fingers along her mother's back. Miles wanted to do the same. To touch each of the uncounted scars and kiss them all better.

Rachel continued, "It took Strausser a while to figure out that if you rubbed a certain kind of ash into the flayed wound, it would make the scar dark. He is – was – a perfectionist, and it took him three years to be completely satisfied with his masterpieces. Then Bass had to come up with new interrogation techniques."

Miles didn't know Bass had had that in him. Watching Rachel being flayed by that sicko once a week for three years? Coming up with that idea in the first place? Miles was even more disgusted with himself for failing to protect Rachel. He was glad Rachel had gotten her revenge on Strausser; it certainly should help her sleep at night.

Charlie just looked at her mother with her big blue eyes full of pity and said, "Mom…"

Rachel shook her head, clearly in her mind the deal was done, and changed the subject, "I don't want to learn to swing a sword, not when we only have two, and I know how easily you can be disarmed. I want to  _really_ learn is how to protect myself unarmed. Like Krav Maga."

Miles nodded. He didn't know Krav Maga per say, but he knew plenty of hand-to-hand fighting tricks. And he knew that karate was good for little boys with ADHD, perhaps it would do Rachel some good.

Miles chivvied Charlie and Rachel together and started showing them some dirty moves that might come in handy. Dirty moves that they could use to keep their hides intact until he could get there.


	21. Mea Culpa

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: Thank you all for reading and reviewing. Thank you to LLCoyote, Kaylee Frye, and JeMappelleTea for their wonderful and detailed reviews back on fanfiction.net :)
> 
> Thank you also to xyber116 for beta'ing this chapter.
> 
> Trigger warnings: POV Stockholm syndrome/PTSD, contemplations of suicide
> 
> I don't own the characters or Revolution; I'm just playing with them for a bit for fun, not profit.

**Ten years after The Blackout**

Miles stared at the empty whiskey bottle; he was sprawled half-dressed over his office desk. It was some time in the early pre-dawn hours, and he was  _out_  with no way to get more until the sun was up. He could  _try_  to get a few hours of sleep before restarting the cycle of: staring at maps, glaring at soldiers, drinking to forget Rachel, but he couldn't take another night of dreaming about Rachel only to wake up to her ghost – bloody, broken, and vengeful.

Miles contemplated the empty glass bottle. Contemplated hurling it to the floor, picking up a shard and cutting along each forearm opening his arm vein or artery – whichever, he didn't know anatomy – letting his life's blood wash away his failures.

He had failed to protect Rachel from herself. Had willfully ignored her pleas for help. Had kept her caged her against her will. Had taken her away from her kids. It was no wonder she thought diving out of a three-story window for the merest chance of freedom was worthwhile.

Miles was still studying the glass bottle, still contemplating eating his gun, still pondering taking the same three-story dive, when Nora found him.

She took the bottle from his hands, placing it on his desk beside its empty, cockeyed brother, and huffed at the stench of alcohol-laden sweat, "When was the last time you bathed?"

Miles shrugged, taking a bath reminded him of the last he saw Rachel, alive and well. And naked.

Nora pulled him up out of his chair and led him up the stairs to his bathroom. The bathroom in the suite he'd been using for the past three, almost four, years, not his real bathroom. The bathroom he swore he'd never enter again. Nora pulled his rank clothes off of his un-protesting body.  _It probably would be better to die clean, save some poor sod the trouble of doing it later._

Nora pushed him into the still warm, slightly-used bathwater – she had probably taken a bath earlier – and began scrubbing his back.

She said, "I know your friend's suicide hit you pretty hard, but it's no excuse to let yourself go so entirely."

Miles was confused for a moment, and then remembered he had told Nora that a friend had offed himself. He had never gotten around to telling her about Rachel before, and certainly didn't want to explain everything now.

Nora continued, "It's not like it's your fault, some people just…"

Miles interrupted her, "No, it  _is_  my fault. There were so many fucking warning signs, and I just ignored them. I tried to fix him earlier, but I thought he got better. I was wrong, he must have just learned to hide the signs better."

Nora stepped around the tub – not as big as the one upstairs, but still big – she said, "You can't fix people like a jammed rifle. People don't work like that. You can't force someone to want to live. It's still not your fault. He was adult."

Miles smiled a small, bitter smile, "A very determined adult."

Nora nodded, "See, if he was that determined, he would've found a way no matter what. It's not your fault."

Miles sank into the bathwater, wishing he could tell Nora the truth about Rachel and have her off him in a fit of rage.

Almost magically, Nora said, "I know you still feel responsible, can you do anything for his family? Help them out?"

_Fuck! What would he tell Ben; how could he look him in the eyes?_

* * *

**Fifteen years after The Blackout**

Rachel was on watch, her body emanating a pleasant hum of hurt. Her shoulders, pectorals, and biceps all ached from the strength training. Miles had taught her the correct way to do a push-up; she'd been doing them wrong all her life. And she had a massive greening bruise on her thigh, but that was from Charlie. They were both still working on the hand-to-hand combat bit, Rachel had fallen for a feint and Charlie hadn't pulled the blow.

Adrenaline and determination had gotten her through a lot of scrapes; she was hoping this training would help her through even more.

_Little Fly/ Thy summer's play,/ My thoughtless hand/ Has brush'd away…_

They were camped outside of Clayton, New Mexico after having to take a large detour around the Pueblo Nations. Rachel was fully cognizant of the cosmic irony of village's name. Rachel could sense Miles walking over to the corpsified car –  _car_ cass as Aaron had punned – she was sitting on.

Miles sat down on the hood of the Subaru, and looked at Rachel, "You're doing good."

Rachel smiled, "With what, the hand-to-hand stuff, or not snapping and killing you all?"

It was true, Rachel was feeling a bit on the saner side of things. She still caught herself reciting A Poison Tree over and over in her head as they walked, but she told herself that Blake had intended the poem to be an indictment of the Christian doctrine of 'turn the other cheek' and not as a celebration of elaborate revenge plots. And she _tried_ reciting other, happier, poems as they walked; it  _seemed_  to be helping. Then again, she  _was_  discussing her own sanity with herself.

… _Am not I/ A fly like thee?/ Or art not thou/ A man like me?..._

Rachel could tell Miles was uncomfortable with her jokes about her own sanity, and felt the need to needle him some more, mostly to prove to herself that she could without repercussions, "What, is it in poor taste to make jokes about the loony-toons woman?"

Miles was in one of his taciturn moods, and made no response beyond an enigmatic look.

Rachel still had an itch to scratch, her need not satisfied by his bland non-response, "Everyone, even Aaron, has been treating me differently since you all saw my back. It's as if now that you've seen physical evidence for what you all knew happened, you know it actually happened or something. You personally should know better. Not all scars are visible."

Miles turned to her and said, "I'm sorry."

Rachel snorted, "Whatever; it is only human to need to see to believe."

Miles corrected her, "No, I mean I'm sorry for everything. For taking you from your family. For keeping you away from them for years. For letting Bass have you again. For not protecting you better. For not fixing you. For letting your family get hurt. For…"

Rachel cut him off, "I'm not some broken china doll you can glue back together.  _You_  can't fix me. Only  _I_  can fix me."

Miles grabbed her hands, and earnestly said, "I just want to help."

… _For I dance/ And drink & sing;/ Till some blind hand/ Shall brush my wing…_

Rachel looked up into his dark eyes for a dozen quick heartbeats. Miles slowly leaned in, and Rachel leaned back. Miles looked startled, then disappointed, then accepting, each emotion lasting mere seconds on his face before being chased off by the next.

Rachel said, "You  _are_  helping. But we can't do  _that_."

Miles nodded, acceptingly.

Rachel elaborated, knowing that his sappy center was hurt, "It wouldn't be fair."

Miles said gently, "Rachel, Ben is dead; he doesn't care, and I'll explain it to Charlie."

… _If thought is life/ And strength & breath;/ And the want/ Of thought is death;…_

Rachel replied, "No, Miles it wouldn't be fair to  _us_. There needs to be a me, before there can be a we. And you don't want to do this to yourself. Anyways, you want to help me, help me. Take care of Charlie, teach me how to defend myself; don't drag us into a destructive relationship. I don't need a good fuck that badly."

Miles looked disgruntled at the denigration of his skills, so Rachel continued, "Don't get me wrong, I'd love to feel your lips, your hands, your…"

Rachel remembered how skillful his hands had been all those years ago, and he certainly would have learned a lot in the decades since. He had been endearingly inexperienced with anything beyond simple missionary style, but he had had a certain natural talent and willingness to please. Rachel wondered if that had changed. Rachel shook herself out of her counter-productive and smutty thoughts, and noticed a small smirk on Miles' face.

Rachel returned to her train of thought, "But if we do this, I'll be yours and you'll be my crutch. That can't happen. I've already been yours and we've seen how that story ends."  _With you leaving me for someone stronger, fiercer, not broken_. "If we do this, it needs to be as equals, and right now I'm hardly the emotional equal of a blueberry scone."

Miles chivalrously stood up from the rusted Subaru and walked back to his bedroll, leaving Rachel alone with her thoughts. She wished it didn't have to be this way, but she was pretty certain that this was the only way it could be.

… _Then am I/ A happy fly,/ If I live,/ Or if I die._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> William Blake's **The Fly**
> 
> Little Fly,  
> Thy summer's play  
> My thoughtless hand  
> Has brushed away.  
> Am not I  
> A fly like thee?  
> Or art not thou  
> A man like me?  
> For I dance,  
> And drink, and sing,  
> Till some blind hand  
> Shall brush my wing.  
> If thought is life  
> And strength and breath,  
> And the want  
> Of thought is death;  
> Then am I  
> A happy fly.  
> If I live,  
> Or if I die.
> 
> \- Author's Note: This is the penultimate chapter guys, I hope you've enjoyed it, and as always, reviews and constructive criticism are greatly appreciated :)


	22. All the Time in the World

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: Thank you all for reading and reviewing.
> 
> Thank you also to xyber116 for beta'ing this chapter.
> 
> Partly set during Enemies of the State.
> 
> Trigger warnings: POV Stockholm syndrome/PTSD
> 
> I don't own the characters or Revolution; I'm just playing with them for a bit for fun, not profit

**Eleven years after The Blackout**

_I was angry with my friend:/ I told my wrath, my wrath did end…_

Rachel was sitting on her cot, absentmindedly twisting her wedding ring and plotting another escape attempt. Bass had given up on cordiality and swaying Rachel to his side via creature comforts. She was locked in a long narrow cell, maybe 3 feet by 8 feet, in a basement somewhere important and high traffic. Rachel could hear many feet clomp above her during the day and almost none at night. The floor was cement – no digging her way out. The solid wooden door was locked on the outside – no lock-picking or breaking. The hinges were on the outside too.

… _I was angry with my foe:/ I told it not, my wrath did grow…_  


Rachel had already tried the fake sickness trick to lure one guard in to beat or kill him, but he had dealt with her handily, even surprised as he was. None of her guards ever came in with weapons she could use against them. She didn't have any poison or a sleeping drug to slip the guards. The one prison escape trope she hadn't tried was the feminine wiles bit. The idea nauseated her. She had little enough of her  **self**  left to want to use her own body as a tool in that manner.

… _And I watered it in fears,/ Night and morning with my tears…_  


Rachel heard some slamming and rattling of locks.  _Was it Miles? Had he miraculously determined she was still alive? Had a guard told him? Was he coming for her?_  Rachel creeped over to the door just as the peep window to her cell opened. She was partly blinded by the torchlight. Her pupils contracted to protect her sensitive photoreceptors. After several seconds she could see again – it was a stern-faced, dark-skinned man, not Miles. She returned to her cot. Whoever he was, he wasn't Miles. In her desolation, she hardly noted the scuffle outside as the stern man was attacked and dragged off. He wasn't Miles.

… _And I sunned it with smiles,/ And with soft deceitful wiles…_  


Rachel shook herself and went back to attempting to come up with another escape plan. Each failed attempt brought draconian punitive measures, but Rachel had to do something! Sitting in the dark dwelling on all of her missed escape attempts back when Miles was her keeper, and she was his, wouldn't do her any good. Nor would merely attempting to keep her mind sharp and stave off boredom with literary analysis. Rachel had resumed her lapsed fitness regiment, working on building upper-body strength, but that only took a very small portion of her day. The rest was spent planning escapes and hating Bass.

… _And it grew both day and night/ Till it bore an apple bright…_  


A few days after the unexpected and short-lived visit of the stern man, Rachel was sitting on her cot, absentmindedly twisting her wedding ring and plotting another escape attempt, and the door was thrown open. Rachel restrained herself from flinching, Bass had stopped by for an unexpected chat. Instead of his normal preamble, some sick attempt at civil conversation, he launched directly into accusations.

Bass spat out, "What did you do to Miles?!"

Rachel was genuinely confused and said, "What are you talking about? I haven't seen Miles in over a year."

Bass continued, rage unabated, "Don't play coy with me, you bitch. You warped Miles; you turned him  _against_  me. At first it was just him eatin' dinner with you, blaming me for every single fucking nightmare you had."

Bass paused, and Rachel turned her fine mind to trying to figure out how to deflect Bass' rage. She would be happy if he wanted to kill her and get this hell over with, but she didn't think she could endure an early session with Corporal Strausser, her back hadn't healed yet from his last session. Or Bass might try water-boarding again – a possibility that only heightened her cat-like distaste of water.

… _And my foe beheld it shine,/ And he knew that it was mine…_  


Bass raged on, "Then he started spending even more time with you, almost to the point of neglecting the Republic. But I was  _fine_ with that. He's always had a thing for you; whatever, our relationship got better."

Rachel's heart became tachycardic, her mind picking apart Bass' statement; Miles had always had a thing for her? On one level she had always known it, but she had tried to suppress that knowledge. Now that both brothers were lost to her, she could acknowledge her feelings for the both of them.

Bass shouted, "But even your fucking corpse drove him away from me! Spending all his time in the bottom of a bottle with  _Nora_. I told myself he'd get over you. He's gotten over better before."

Rachel refocused her mind on the here and now, trying to determine the best method to keep her hide intact – or at least not more damaged. Rachel's mind lit upon the perfect plan, one that would play into Bass' misogynistic tendencies perfectly.

… _And into my garden stole/ When the night had veiled the pole…_  


Bass calmed down, became almost melancholy, "Things had almost returned to normal, when he turns up, out of the blue, at my bedside, in the middle of the night, and put a gun to my head. Miles wanted to shoot me, but be couldn't do it. He has always been a sap."

Bass, with his typical mercurial temperament, raged, "But what did you do to him!?"

Rachel, still seated on her cot, raised her hands in surrender, and softly replied, "Bass, I didn't do anything to Miles. Yes, I enjoyed talking to Ben's brother over dinner – when he was Ben's brother and not 'The General.' But I didn't  _do_  anything except rebuff his advances; you know he has always felt more for me, than I felt for him."

"I  _may_ have led him on very slightly," Rachel said, holding her index finger and thumb close together, and then threw her hands out helplessly, purposefully heaving her chest slightly, "I may have implied that I was unwilling to start a physical relationship because… but what else would you expect of a poor woman alone, with limited means?"

Bass studied her minutely, suspicious.

Rachel continued with the innocent act and asked, "Have you talked to Nora?"

Bass' face turned into a scowl, "The bounty hunter fled with Miles."

Rachel quirked her eyebrow meaningfully, she couldn't outright say: then maybe that's whom you should blame, but she could certainly imply it.

Bass inferred her meaning and after the typical exchange of questions about what Ben was working on, he left, and Rachel remained physically sound. And certain in her belief that Miles was never coming to save her.

… _In the morning glad I see/ My foe outstretched beneath the tree._  


* * *

**Fifteen years after The Blackout**

Miles stood, rubbing his scruff, watching his motley crew sleeping around him. Two days ago, near Lubbock, Texas they had run into another group of orphans. Their parents had taken the brief return of electricity as a sign of the impending Rapture, and had committed mass suicide without properly taking care of their children. Charlie argued that it was their fault and they had to do something for the kids. It had taken all of Miles and Rachel's will to persuade Charlie that they just couldn't do anything for them. It had been odd working together with Rachel's force of will, not against it, and eventually they swayed Charlie.

Charlie had been annoyed that they had teamed up on her, but luckily she didn't hold grudges like her mother. For the most part the three of them – four, if you included Aaron – were doing well. He had kept with the women's training, and Rachel seemed to experience more of the full range of human emotion each day. Seemed less calculating and poker-faced. Also, he caught her silently reciting something as they walked less frequently.

Miles wondered what Ben was thinking about this course of events. Miles, the delinquent brother, taking care of his widow and daughter on an epic journey to fix Ben's mistakes. On an epic journey to fix his own mistakes. Ben would have scoffed at this Christian sentimentality, but Miles felt it kept him honest, imaging Ben looking down on his actions, or up. Miles didn't know if he wanted Ben to pay for what he had done to the world, or if he'd rather Ben was safe in Heaven. Anyways, he  **was**  probably in Purgatory.

Miles was still pretty sure Rachel's reluctance to start a relationship was due to scars from her time with Bass, so he let her be. If she kept him in 'the friend zone' he knew it was to wall herself off from those emotions, those experiences. Those things she wasn't ready to face yet. She still hadn't told him if Bass or another one of the militiamen had raped her, but Miles was pretty damn sure that had happened. At least once…

Over the relatively uneventful course of the trip, Rachel had slowly revealed more of what had happened to her. The flaying, the sleep deprivation and starvation, stress positions nude in a drafty room in winter, and her least favorite – though she successfully hid that from Bass – water-boarding. Each time she revealed another layer of her torment, she acted as if she was revealing another layer of her inner self. As if what she had gone through was  _her._  As if that was the only part of her that was left; that and revenge. On one level, Miles knew that it took a lot of courage for Rachel to reveal what had happened to her, it should help her heal, but on the other hand, it wasn't right for her to think that was all she was. She was so much more.

Miles still wasn't sure if she was telling the full truth, about what had happened, or if she was hiding even more. He wasn't even sure if Rachel knew whether she was playing him again or not. He knew even if he was given fifty more years, he still wouldn't get to know everything about Rachel. About her mind, her psyche, her past. He knew he owed her a debt that could never be repaid, and harbored dark and guilt-tainted love for her. He hoped someday she'd be able to pull herself together enough to admit that she loved him back, but he wasn't going to wait around for that. In the meantime he was going to try to be better man for Charlie, for Rachel, for Nora.

He would keep his promise to Rachel of keeping Charlie safe, try to help her be a better mother, try to give her self-confidence and self-defense skills, but that is all he would do. She didn't want a crutch; then he wouldn't be a crutch. Would let her move beyond a 'blueberry scone' on her own. But  _fuck_  was it hard. He wanted to cradle her and protect her, but he knew that what he loved about her was her spunk, her fire, and she need to get that back on her own, to own it. Otherwise her fire would be as uncontrolled and dangerous as a wild-fire not a useful, warm, hearth-fire.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: I know this wasn't the ending you were looking for, and it wasn't the ending I had imagined when I started writing this either, but frankly I'm not sure even with the relatively mild captivity I wrote, there are enough pieces of Rachel left to stitch together to make a healthy individual. Nor am I sure that a Miles-Rachel relationship based on the bones of said captivity will ever be healthy. Anyways, the early timeline wrapped up like I wanted it to, and I'll just leave Rachel and Miles here with All the Time in the World to work their way to whatever smutty, fluffy ending you were imagining.
> 
> If you are interested in what happens with the Texan hacker and the other events that happened along the way, tune in to my #ClaytonLives story.
> 
> As always, reviews and constructive criticism are greatly appreciated. Or in other words, "Can I haz reviews please?"

**Author's Note:**

> I've been working on this fic since I first saw episode 1.11, it it changed at lot for the better after 1.17. I've been out of the fanfic world since Alias went off the air almost ten years ago; reviews and constructive criticism are greatly appreciated :)


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